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bbde50a30650215810dcdd24db8f2977 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-aug-15-mn-426-story.html | Heroic Race to Save Boy’s Life | Heroic Race to Save Boy’s Life
Around the time Buford O. Furrow Jr. allegedly walked into the Jewish community center with an automatic weapon on a deranged mission that would shock anew this gun-prone and gun-weary land, paramedic Todd Carb was puttering around a firehouse nearby.
Over at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center, Dr. Charles Deng, an emergency medicine specialist, was in the ER studying patients’ records. Dr. Clarence Sutton Jr., a trauma surgeon, sat at his desk, for once with the TV off--and thus he would not learn of the victims until they were rolled in the door.
The chaplain, Brother Joe McTaggart, was on a mission of his own, driving to a hospice to comfort the dying.
They are only a few of the many souls who would respond to the mayhem that was first described in a 911 call at 10:49 Tuesday morning from the North Valley Jewish Community Center in Granada Hills.
The most grievously injured of the five people Furrow hit when he squeezed off some 70 rounds in less than three minutes was 5-year-old Benjamin Kadish. A 9-millimeter bullet tore into his backside and straight through his abdomen. Another bullet ripped through his left thigh, pulverizing the bone.
Trauma specialists refer to the “golden hour,” the scant time for saving a critically injured person. In this case, an hour was an eternity they did not have.
Within five minutes, paramedics from Los Angeles Fire Department Station 87, about two miles away in Northridge, arrived at the community center. The stench of burned gunpowder still hung in the air. Shell casings littered the floor.
Carb was the first firefighter to reach the boy. “He looked mortally wounded,” Carb said. “I had doubts he could hold on.”
The rescue of this ebullient boy--who was taken off a ventilator Saturday, his condition upgraded from critical to serious--is a story of medical expertise flawlessly wielded, of a young life plucked from savagery’s foaming maw. But it is more than that.
One of the virtues of a great metropolis is propinquity, what might be called the gift of closeness. Vital to this case was the nearness of both the firehouse and the hospital to the community center.
But another sort of closeness also figures in the rescue, and perhaps can serve as an antidote to the poisonous doctrines embraced by Furrow, a white supremacist from Washington state who allegedly told authorities he had traveled to Los Angeles to kill Jews.
It was a close-knit rainbow staff at Providence Holy Cross in Mission Hills that worked on the 5-year-old after paramedics rushed him in. And as Brother Joe will surely exclaim until kingdom come, this remarkable diversity is a living refutation of the repugnant ideology that fueled the tragedy.
That message was not lost on Sutton either, an African American who operated on the boy for more than six hours without a break.
“I find it truly ironic,” he said, “that this guy was a white supremacist with ideals of hatred of Jews and blacks and other minorities, and he shot at Jewish people, and then a black surgeon comes along and saves this boy’s life.”
‘I Looked at Him, and His Eyes Rolled Back’
A 911 call about a man shooting a machine gun at the Jewish center reached the Fire Department at 10:50 and was routed to Station 87 in Northridge. Carb was tidying up the place, and his partner that day, 27-year department veteran Danny Jordan, was on the phone to his wife.
“A shooting at this time of day?” he remembers telling her. “Gotta go.” Crackling over the ambulance radio as they raced to the scene was a call for additional help, which they took as a bad sign.
They arrived at 10:54. Police, guns drawn, were already inside the building. Jordan went to the first victim they came upon, a 68-year-old receptionist shot in one arm and grazed across her back, and sent Carb to check on a boy lying in the hallway, a frantic young woman kneeling beside him.
Benjamin was pale, his eyes glazed, not talking, not responding, sweating, no palpable pulse in his wrist. Shock. Bloody clothes, bloody floor. Carb cut the clothes away, exposing the holes in his abdomen and buttock and leg. He tried to get an IV line in, but the blood pressure was so low the veins were flat and he couldn’t manage. Benjamin is a big kid, so they guessed he was 8 years old.
“I looked at him, and his eyes rolled back and I thought he went into full arrest,” said the 40-year-old Carb. “I grabbed him and shook him by the shoulders and he came to and looked at me. ‘Don’t do that,’ I told him.”
Jordan came over, and they agreed the best thing they could do for the boy was what paramedics sometimes call “h.a."--haul ass. “You are dealing with minutes at that point, when [a patient has] no blood pressure,” Jordan said.
Their first choice was a hospital with a specialized pediatric trauma center, but Childrens Hospital Los Angeles meant a helicopter evacuation, adding precious minutes the boy didn’t have. They lifted him onto a gurney and into the ambulance, then headed for Providence Holy Cross, about two miles away and one of just two certified trauma centers in the San Fernando Valley.
“This is Rescue 87,” Jordan radioed the hospital en route, as Carb and another paramedic tried again to get an IV line going in the boy’s arm to lessen the shock--and again to no avail. “We’ve got an 8-year-old male, multiple gunshot wounds. He’s critical, and he’s circling the drain.”
At the other end of the radio, in the bay station at the hospital, was Kathleen Rubino, supervisor of respiratory services. She recalls that Jordan sounded “upset” and said something was “very, very wrong.”
Nineteen minutes elapsed from the time the boy was wounded to the moment he was wheeled into the emergency room.
Only after the adrenaline of working on the boy wore off did the horror sink in for the paramedics. Jordan, 53, hardened by thousands of siren-wailing rides to blood-spattered scenes, said he found it hard to sleep for a couple of nights. “I don’t care how long you are on the job,” he said, choking back tears. “Kids are hard.”
The attack reminded Carb, who is Jewish, of the persecution long endured by people of his faith. “It hit a chord with me, because that happens to be my personal theological belief.”
‘If We Didn’t Do One Part, He Would Die’
It is no minor detail that the half-dozen members of the trauma team who met the gurney in the emergency room entrance did not know who the boy was. Thus they did not know if he was allergic to any of the numerous medications he was about to receive, if he was already taking another medication that might complicate treatment, if he had preexisting medical problems. Though this was an Information Age crisis, amplified by hovering TV helicopters and endless news bulletins, all the cable hookups and cell phones in the Valley were for the time being silent on the essential question of the boy’s identity.
Under Deng’s care in the ER, the nameless, unconscious boy on the gurney was subjected to a blur of procedures: a ventilator tube put down his windpipe to supply oxygen; IV lines to funnel fluids and universal, Type O blood; multiple tubes into his gut and bladder.
“All of this had to be done in a very quick time, knowing that if we didn’t do one part, he would die,” Deng said. “Plus, it was a child. A lot of our staff here have children in day-care centers. You have to deal with that too.”
The boy spent just 18 minutes in the ER, whisked to the operating room so quickly he was still wearing his sneakers. “That is an amount of time that any trauma team can be proud of,” said Deng, 34, who trained in emergency medicine at County-USC Medical Center.
In the operating room, an anesthesiologist put the boy under and Sutton opened his abdomen, promptly calling for more assistance, including that of a vascular surgeon, Dr. Mehdi Fakhrai. The most critical injuries, amid all the wreckage caused by that one bullet--from a shattered tailbone to a torn bowel--were the abrasions in a major abdominal vein and artery. The key was stopping the massive blood loss from those smallish wounds, Sutton said, which the surgeons finally did by repairing the blood vessels.
Surrounded by a growing team of doctors, nurses and technicians, Sutton patched the damage the best he could. Among many other procedures, he diverted the colon, which will necessitate using a bag for wastes, but that standard procedure is scheduled to be reversed after the rectum heals, one of his doctors explained.
Sutton, 37, was trained in trauma surgery at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center in Willowbrook. “I have seen a phenomenal number of gunshot wounds,” he said.
While the surgeons were doing their handiwork, hospital staff dealt with the rising pandemonium outside the operating room.
Anxious parents were calling to see if their kids were among the victims. Good citizens called with offers to donate blood. The news media showed up in force. Brother Joe, a beeper-wearing man of the cloth, had been summoned back to the hospital and was helping direct traffic.
Hearing of the shooting, the boy’s parents, Charles and Eleanor Kadish of West Hills, went to the community center, where it became apparent that their 5-year-old might be one of the victims.
The Fire Department rushed them to the hospital by ambulance. Still, making a positive identification proved surprisingly difficult: The parents recognized the shoes and underwear, and they produced a photo that a hospital staffer took into the operating room.
“The worst thing you could do was tell the wrong parents,” Deng said in an interview Thursday, and then made a suggestion: “Maybe children should carry identification, at least a phone number to reach their parents.”
A chaplain phoned Rabbi Debbi Till of Temple Ahavat Shalom in Northridge to come in and wait with the parents in a small room off the ER. “We prayed for the strength, compassion and skill of the surgeons and for a successful recovery for [Benjamin] and for strength for the family to endure this difficult time,” she said.
Parents’ ‘Overall Reaction Was Relief’
Dr. Peter Liu, a pediatric intensive care specialist, oversaw the boy’s recovery, staying with him until Benjamin was airlifted to Childrens Hospital in Hollywood that night. Aside from the burden of the wounds and surgery, the boy’s body had to cope with liters of fluids--blood, plasma, antibiotics, anesthesia, antacid, minerals--that had been injected into him.
“This is one of the 10 worst children’s cases I’ve seen, in terms of blood loss,” said Liu, who was called in from Valley Presbyterian Medical Center. Between the injury and surgery, he said, Benjamin lost practically all the 2 1/2 liters of blood in his body.
It was in the surgical recovery room that his parents saw him. “We had prepared them the best we could,” said Laura Foltz, a registered nurse and manager of the operating room. “They were a little shocked, but I think their overall reaction was relief, that they got to be next to him and hold him and touch him.”
Sister Emily, a hospital chaplain, said the solemn occasion had a joyous dimension. Benjamin was bandaged and sedated and a breathing tube was in his mouth, but when his mother got close to his ear and whispered, his heart raced and he moved his hand. “He heard their voice,” she said.
Benjamin was carted into a helicopter at 11:15 p.m. and flown to Childrens Hospital, the only certified regional pediatric trauma center in the area and one of only 10 nationwide. The next day, Dr. Richard Reynolds, an orthopedic surgeon, realigned and reset the shattered left leg in a one-hour procedure.
Doctors took Benjamin off the ventilator Saturday, upgrading his condition to serious. “A definite positive sign,” a spokesman said.
The other four victims of the Jewish community center rampage have been released from area hospitals. Furrow is in custody after surrendering Wednesday and has been charged with five counts of attempted murder and with the murder of Joseph Ileto, a Filipino American postal worker.
People who work in trauma specialize in tragedy, but the shooting of this 5-year-old disturbed many of them.
“We did what we had to do,” said Rubino of Providence Holy Cross, “but later, whether it was 15 minutes or an hour, most of us either fell apart or we needed a hug.”
Mary Jane Pettee, a registered nurse who works in the operating room, broke down two days after the event as she discussed her feelings with a dozen others who had had a hand in the boy’s care.
“This really affected us,” she said, crying, “because that could be our child, that could be my son. I went home later that night and saw my 10-year-old and, wow, I just lost it.”
A hazard of this line of work, said the hospital’s supervisor of social services, Karen Roberson, is “vicarious traumatization.”
For the caregivers, the traumatic part was the warped genocidal hatred behind the attack, and to counteract that, Brother Joe and Sister Emily pointed to the diversity of people who pulled together to rescue the boy.
“There were people of every denomination and culture side by side in the operating room,” Sister Emily said.
“There was a wealth of goodness,” Brother Joe said. “That is the antithesis of hatred.”
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)
When Seconds Count
Within minutes of the shooting Tuesday at the North Valley Jewish Community Center in Granada Hills, rescue personnel began attending to the victims, especially the grievously wounded 5-year-old Benjamin Kadish.
Tuesday
10:49 a.m.: 911 call made from the Jewish community center after Buford Furrow allegedly enters and opens fire.
10:50: Call routed to Los Angeles Fire Department Station 87 in Northridge.
10:54: Firefighters and paramedics arrive on the scene.
11:08: Paramedics transporting Benjamin arrive at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in Mission Hills.
11:26: Surgery begins.
6:00 p.m.: Surgery ends (approximate) .
11:15: Boy is taken by helicopter to Childrens Hospital Los Angeles for additional surgery and intensive care.
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8c0ec1afa380d6ebf71bd2afe6cc30f0 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-aug-15-tm-252-story.html | Elvis Has Just Entered the Building | Elvis Has Just Entered the Building
Whenever Billy Blanks retells his life’s drama, its major actors--even the federal government--are sufficiently comfortable to address him as just “Billy.”
There, at the humble origins in Phoenix of what would later become his Tae Bo Aerobics workout, is the actress Catherine Bach, meeting Blanks at a fund-raiser for American Indians and telling him: “Billy, I think you should move to California.” Which he did, in 1989. Not long after, an unnamed big-wheel producer leaves Blanks’ original workout space (his Reseda garage), only to return later, saying: “Billy, you should open a studio. You’d be successful.” During the attempt to trademark his workout (it was then called Kaerobics), the government calls Blanks, saying: “Billy, we’re sorry, but some other guy trademarked that name two days ago.”
It’s just as well. It’s difficult to imagine a workout named Kaerobics catching on in the same way as has Tae Bo, Blanks’ second name choice for the phenomenally successful aerobic workout that combines various martial arts movements. Tae Bo now reverberates in the mind like other profitable trademarks: Claritin, Teflon, Xerox. Blanks didn’t just step out from behind the StairMaster, of course; he’d been building up his own gym business in the San Fernando Valley for years. But since its release in August, 1998, the Tae Bo video workout has sold more than 5 million copies, and Blanks’ business manager, Jeffrey Greenfield, says his client has signed a deal with Bantam Books worth a reported $1.5 million. He was even being courted by Mike Ovitz’s agency, AMG Entertainment. No doubt, when Ovitz reached Blanks at his Ventura Boulevard studio, he called him Billy, too.
Blanks’ sudden trans-global popularity--even Parisians cry his name when he walks their streets--is difficult to fathom when you first meet him. Looking almost otherworldly, with his shaved head and serene gaze and extreme reliance on gym-oriented, non-natural clothing fibers, Blanks still comes off as, well, ordinary. In interviews, he can be distant and defensive. He is one of those successful men who says, “It’s not about the money,” but he seems to have settled comfortably into financial accomplishment, driving Vipers and Durangos, handing out presents like music studios to his children, and donating heavily to his church, the Crenshaw Christian Center.
So how did a guy with a workout studio in the Valley get to be, with all due respect to James Cameron, king of the world?
The major actors in Blanks’ life drama these days--there seem to be millions of them and they are all excitable fans--feel very, very comfortable around him. (You can bet they all call him Billy.) There was the man in Arkansas who felt so comfortable near Blanks that he licked him. Inside Blanks’ entourage, this is known as the “Arkansas licking incident,” as in: “Have you heard of the Arkansas licking incident?”
His fans feel comfortable enough to cry in front of him in restaurants, or hand him cellulars with screaming wives on the other end, or just finger his eggplant-size biceps, then run home and tell relatives that they touched him. A group of firefighters ripped the shirt off his back once because they had to own it. In fact, so many people were ripping the shirt off his back--in restaurants, in airports, on live TV appearances--that Blanks finally hired his own bodyguard, Trevor.
Now, wherever Blanks goes--whether it’s as a guest trainer in Miami for Super Bowl weekend, or working out with Arnold or Magic, or throwing out the first ball at the Royals’ season opener this year, or leading hundreds of coeds through Tae Bo at UCLA, or helping Oprah get into shape--Trevor goes. Sometimes, as a dodge, Trevor hands out shirts. It’s hard to imagine that people ever felt this way--drawn? mesmerized? obsessed?--over any of the ponytailed, screaming workout kings who show up on infomercials at 3 in the morning.
Recently, about 150 women in lycra outfits were attempting to wind their way onto the workout floor for Blanks’ 5 p.m. class in Encino, directed by handsome men who were busy monitoring traffic flow, collecting entrance cards and addressing the crowd as “O-right, People.” The whole scene, which repeats itself as many as 10 times a day, had the feel of a Red Cross relief operation about to burst. When you work out at Billy Blanks’ gym, you are surrounded by hand-painted signs imploring belief: “God Is Good,” “Let Brotherly Love Continue,” “Walk by Faith--Not by Sight,” “Faith Without Works Is Dead,” and the brain-jumble, “You’re Snared by the Words of Your Mouth.” It made for a confusing panorama that afternoon.
Blanks’ typical client, a white woman between the ages of 25 and 35 with a really great hair stylist, does not look like a churchgoer. She looks like a Jamba Juice-goer. How does all the faith and brotherly love and word-snaring fit into this woman’s life?
Attempts have been made to explain Blanks’ soaring popularity: His high-action videos have translated exercise to a distracted generation raised on video games and Jerry Bruckheimer movies; his empowerment talks coupled with stun kicks speak to women who identify with “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”; his bald head is cute.
“I think this is more like Elvis,” says Blanks’ personal assistant, Julieann Hartman. “When Billy went on Rosie and met her Chub Club, those women started shaking as if Elvis had just entered the building.” It’s an interesting analogy. The devout thousands who still descend on Graceland every August to mark the King’s death prove one thing: Behind all the hip-shaking and mane-tossing and burning-love, there was something spiritual, even sacred, in Elvis’ pop aura. The ritualistic sobbing and swooning of the 1950s have turned into solemn candlelight vigils outside Graceland; in a fallen world, his fans connect to a yearning for something higher.
Everyone close to Blanks (and Blanks himself) connect his success to something higher. “I believe he’s become successful because he’s learned to line everything up according to the word of God,” says his 25-year-old daughter, Shellie. “I truly believe in my heart God has a path for him--and that path is on the level of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s.” Blanks is celebrated by his clients not as an ab-master, but as a truth-teller, a humble man, a life-changer with presence who can look into others and see their weaknesses, and a man whose message is unconditionally delivered to rich and poor alike.
“There was a rich lady in the Bahamas,” recalls a Blanks assistant, and “wherever she went--her facials, her mineral wraps--people told her she looked great because of her money. But she was a mess, and Billy was honest with her about that because he doesn’t care how much money people have.” Why does this story sound like an update from the New Testament? “Billy got the strength of two men when he’s on the road, " a tall man explains fervently inside the Encino gym, as if recalling his witness to a miracle. “I seen him teach an 11:30 and a 12:30 back to back.”
Road tales like these, of fans crying to Blanks, confessing to Blanks, touching Blanks (“The grabbing and the snatching and everyone wanting to touch him has got to stop,” says Blanks’ sister Irene), are Elvis road tales. Behind all the hip-shaking and head-tossing and burning abs, fans describe a man of the Lycra cloth.
So what does Blanks’ success mean?
After the endless aerobic workouts, the countless hours spent on the StairMaster, the untold thousands dropped at the juice bar, the fascination with “tone” and “flex” and the memorization of obscure muscle groups, it could be that, for the last 20 years, the average gym-goer was looking for something else and never knew it. Rock and roll was never just about the beat, yet for two decades, aerobics videos have been just that. And that can leave a spandex-clad aerobicizer feeling a little lonely at the end of the day. Maybe all they really wanted was a hug.
Or something else.
After his workouts, Blanks sits like a prophet, answering the questions of about 100 women who rest cross-legged or crawl forward on hands and knees to hear his words. Generally, those questions run something like this: “Billy, what do you mean when you say you can be petite in a space and still be strong with a will, too?” You never hear about the Latisumus dorsai in these talks. You hear about “will” and “strength” and “belief” and “perseverance” and, finally, “God.”
Like Deepak Chopra, Blanks is connecting health to something higher, tapping into a lost herd of souls wandering aimlessly from Bally’s to the Fitness Depot. The knock on this crowd was always, “It’s all about bodies.” Blanks’ success is realizing that it’s not just all about bodies; it’s about people confused that
it’s all about bodies. And that success has led to swarming numbers of
Tae Bo rip-offs, and an equal amount of lawyer-generated cease-and-desist letters. (Blanks may be worrying about the wrong competition. It’s a slew of Christian aerobics videos that he should be on the lookout for.)
Think of Blanks as a fundamentalist preacher of sorts, given to catch phrases such as “Life’s a blessing” that bowl over people around him. “I’ll be having a terrible day,” says Hartman, “and Billy will say, ‘Well, life’s a blessing,’ and I’ll just feel so much better afterward.” Simple, but that’s the draw of the fundamentalist, even in the gym. Blanks’ daughter Shellie connects Tae Bo to spiritual conversion. “We had a woman who was Muslim and another who was Jewish, and after working out in the gym, they both became Christians. For a lot of people who feel bad, this workout fills a void in their lives.”
With success comes controversy. There is the pending lawsuit from boxer Sugar Ray Leonard, who claims his name was used by Monea, the marketer of the video, without permission to promote Tae Bo. And there is the FDA investigation into the Ohio-based marketers of Tae Bo who were promoting a barbecue grill lighter as a cure for arthritis and menstrual cramps. No doubt, some days Blanks wishes he could go back in time, to when he was just a trainer for Sinbad and Shaq and other single-name celebrities. Anyone close to Blanks, however, can tell you the Bible predicted his bad press.
“The Bible says as soon as you start doing good,” says Blanks’ son, Billy Jr., “people are going to try to pull you down. But he doesn’t care.”
Neither did Elvis.
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ebe01f6ee043eee1d02cd7845b43af21 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-aug-18-me-1320-story.html | 4 Indicted in Attack on Black Man | 4 Indicted in Attack on Black Man
Four local members of what is described as the nation’s largest racist skinhead group have been indicted by a grand jury in the attempted murder of an African American man, authorities said Tuesday.
The unprovoked assault with a bottle and a knife was “one of the most egregious incidents of racial violence that has occurred in Riverside County,” said Dist. Atty. Grover Trask.
The victim, a 23-year-old resident of Murrieta in southern Riverside County, was taunted with racial slurs, chased, struck on the head with a beer bottle and slashed with a knife, prosecutors alleged. The victim was treated for wounds to his back and head, and is recovering.
The attack occurred March 17, during an impromptu spring break gathering of about 150 young people in an open field east of Temecula. Investigators said the victim was apparently singled out by skinheads in the group because of his race, and was attacked in full view of witnesses who failed to stop it.
The four suspects are members of Western Hammerskins, said Assistant Dist. Atty. Randy Tagami. That gang, with members in California and Arizona, is affiliated with a worldwide organization, Hammerskin Nation, of violent white supremacists and skinheads, authorities allege.
“Hammerskin Nation is the best organized, most widely dispersed and most dangerous skinhead group known in the United States,” said Mark Potok, a spokesman for the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala., which tracks hate groups.
The Riverside County indictment, filed Monday, came after a five-month investigation by the local Sheriff’s Department and the FBI, officials said.
Each suspect was charged with one count of attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder. Each count includes the special allegations of being a member of a criminal street gang and perpetrating a hate crime, Tagami said. Convictions carry a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
One of the suspects, Travis George Miskam, 20, of Hemet, was arraigned Monday and pleaded not guilty. The arraignment was continued to next week for two other defendants: Daniel Glen Butler, 20, and Alan Thomas Yantis, 19, both of Temecula. Each is being held on $250,000 bail.
An arrest warrant was issued for the fourth defendant, Gregory Allan McDaniel, 19, of Temecula.
An attorney for Yantis declined to comment on the case, and the other two were represented temporarily by court-appointed lawyers.
In addition, authorities are considering filing criminal charges against two juveniles connected to the attack, Tagami said.
The involvement of juveniles in racial attacks fits a pattern associated with the skinhead organization, said Potok, of the Southern Poverty Law Center.
In recent years, Hammerskin Nation has grown to nearly 1,000 members in the United States and an additional 2,000 members in Western and Eastern Europe, Russia, Australia and New Zealand.
The group was founded by teenagers and young adults around Dallas about 10 years ago, Potok said, then spread to the South, the upper Midwest and the Southwest. In the early 1990s, its membership arched across both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans; last year, its members staged a worldwide gathering in Budapest, Potok said.
Its members are known for committing violence not only against minorities but among themselves as well, Potok said. “Violence is such a part of the skinhead culture,” he said. “You need to prove that you can mix it up in a bar.”
Some members of its early leadership have been convicted of hate crimes, served prison time and are now back out on the streets, he said. Leaders have tapped adult prisons and juvenile correctional facilities to recruit members, he said.
Their presence in Southern California has been tracked by FBI, the U.S. attorney’s office and local county prosecutors. “They are extensive and they have a significant presence in Southern California,” said Mike Gennaco, an assistant U.S. attorney in Los Angeles specializing in civil rights.
Monday’s indictment was the first involving known members of the organization in Riverside County, said Tagami.
“We’ve prosecuted hate crimes in the past involving individuals who may have been associated with the group,” Tagami said. “But this is the first time we’ve had a group of individuals who purposely hunted down somebody because of his race. This is the first situation connected to a group of people whose sole reason for existence is to hate and to commit an offense like this.”
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8e24812c7efa58199aacbfb3b2b689d7 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-aug-20-mn-1943-story.html | Nolan to Become 1st Female White House Counsel | Nolan to Become 1st Female White House Counsel
Two weeks after a longtime aide turned down his offer to be White House counsel, President Clinton has turned to another veteran of the White House to take the top job.
Beth Nolan, a 47-year-old law professor who holds a senior post at the Justice Department, will next month become the sixth person to be White House counsel during the Clinton administration. She will also be the first woman to have the job in any administration.
Clinton initially offered the job to Cheryl Mills, who would have been the first woman and the first African American. But Mills, to the puzzlement of some colleagues, passed on the chance to have that historic distinction, saying she was tired after nearly seven years at the White House and ready to move to the private sector.
Mills agreed to serve as acting counsel after the departure earlier this month of Charles F.C. Ruff. But Clinton and White House Chief of Staff John Podesta moved quickly to find a permanent successor.
Nolan served in the White House counsel’s office as an ethics advisor during the first term, then moved on to the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel. Clinton nominated her in 1997 to be the assistant attorney general in charge of that office, but the Senate has never acted on the nomination. Her new job does not require Senate confirmation.
Before and between stints in the Clinton administration, Nolan spent more than a decade on the faculty at George Washington University Law School. She taught courses in constitutional law, legal and government ethics and governmental law.
Atty. Gen. Janet Reno said Nolan’s background makes her “perfectly suited” for her new job.
The White House counsel is typically a low-profile position, but it has grown into a more visible job under Clinton. Ruff, a former Watergate prosecutor, was part of the team that led Clinton’s successful defense during his impeachment trial last winter.
In a statement, Clinton praised Nolan.
“She has a distinguished record of public service both in the White House and at the Department of Justice,” he said. “While Chuck Ruff is a tough act to follow, I know of no one better than Beth to succeed him. I look forward to having her back.”
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4b8d382ac02372c2978c536904623f67 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-aug-21-fi-2205-story.html | Conde Nast to Buy Disney Unit | Conde Nast to Buy Disney Unit
Walt Disney Co. has agreed to sell its Fairchild Publications unit to Conde Nast Publications Inc. for about $650 million, a person familiar with the deal said Friday.
The decision to sell Fairchild, which publishes titles such as Women’s Wear Daily, the fashion industry trade publication, as well as Jane and W magazines, comes as Disney Chairman Michael Eisner has been under pressure to jump-start the company’s lagging stock and earnings.
Eisner and Disney Chief Financial Officer Thomas Staggs recently have tried to pare about $500 million from Disney’s costs while focusing on its core assets, the film studio, television network and theme parks.
Along with the possible sale of Disney’s hockey and baseball franchises, the sale of Fairchild has been under consideration.
But the deal doesn’t divest Disney from the publishing business. In fact, it comes as Disney’s Miramax Films is investing as a 50% partner in Talk, the new magazine edited by Tina Brown. The other partner is Hearst Corp., which had also been in the bidding for Fairchild, according to published reports. The sale also does not include Los Angeles Magazine, a person familiar with the sale said.
For Conde Nast, which is a unit of Advance Publications Inc. and is run by S.I. Newhouse Jr., the newly acquired titles bolster an already prominent position in the magazine market. Conde Nast, which publishes Vogue, Mademoiselle, Vanity Fair and the New Yorker, also stands to take a larger slice of the fashion advertising pie. Apparel and accessory advertisers spent more than $1.04 billion on magazine ads last year, according to the Publishers Information Bureau.
The agreement was first reported in Friday’s New York Times. Spokesmen for the companies declined comment.
Burbank-based Disney acquired New York-based Fairchild, which employs about 780 people, in 1996 as part of its purchase of Capital Cities/ABC. Disney had planned to sell the unit but reversed itself in early 1997 despite what it described as strong interest from buyers. At the time, Disney said it had decided Fairchild’s position in consumer magazines could be “a strong platform to launch new magazines.”
But the company did sell off four newspapers it bought in the Capital Cities acquisition.
Disney shares closed at $29.88, up 50 cents on the New York Stock Exchange.
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)
How They Stack Up
Disney’s sale of Fairchild Publications would combine some well-known magazines under one owner.
Conde Nast
Glamour
GQ
Mademoiselle
The New Yorker
Vanity Fair
Vogue
Wired
Fairchild
Footwear News
Home Furnishings News
Jane
Los Angeles Magazine*
Supermarket News
W
Women’s Wear Daily
* Not included in the deal
*
Bloomberg News was used in compiling this report.
* BENEFITS SUIT
Disney has agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit on medical benefits for thousands of retirees. C3
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53b9bedd506207f0baca17a3c715b931 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-aug-26-ca-3705-story.html | Salsa King | Salsa King
It’s early on a Monday morning and the Old Town Pasadena home of Air Advertising is empty and quiet, save for the sound of classical music wafting from the office of executive director Oscar Abadia.
It seems a strange fit for the man some credit with popularizing the vibrant, tropical strains of salsa and merengue music in Southern California. Sort of like dropping in on Luciano Pavarotti and finding “Muskrat Love” on the CD player.
“I studied classic music for eight years,” Abadia explains. “It’s better music to work to, you know? I also put it on when I’m going to bed. But when I am at a party or show, I love the other music.”
And apparently he’s no longer alone. Thirteen years ago, when Abadia’s weekly salsa-merengue show debuted on KLVE-FM (107.5), the genre was largely considered an acquired taste, like jazz or, well, classical music. Today the 10-hour overnight show, which begins at 8 p.m. each Saturday, draws as much as 10% of all radio listeners during its time period--nearly twice what its nearest rival gets.
There are myriad reasons why Southern California has suddenly developed a taste for salsa, of course, from changing immigration patterns and the success of Hollywood movies like “Mambo Kings” and “Dance With Me” to the mainstream popularity of Latin American artists such as Ricky Martin and Elvis Crespo. But Abadia deserves at least some of the credit, says Bill Marin, president of Prestigio records and a former vice president at RMM records, the world’s largest independent tropical-music label and one that launched the careers of such major acts as Celia Cruz, Tito Puente, Marc Anthony and La India, among others.
He Fled Native Colombia and Landed on His Feet
“He has to take a big part of the responsibility,” Marin says. “And one reason why is that show’s always been [ranked] in the top three. But more important is that KLVE has continued that program and continued to maintain the acceptance of tropical music in this city.”
Actually, Abadia didn’t so much invent the show as he did import it. In his native Colombia, Abadia spent 10 years working for the nation’s three largest radio networks, eventually winding up as host of his own weekend salsa show with the country’s dominant broadcaster, Radio Caracol, where he also worked as a senior account executive in the advertising department. But his program hardly stood out on Colombia’s crowded airwaves.
“In Bogota,” he says, “we had probably five or six radio stations playing the same music. So the competition was very strong.” Still, it wasn’t competition as much as chaos that drove Abadia out of the country.
In November 1985, armed members of the M-19 guerrilla army stormed Colombia’s main courthouse, taking more than 300 hostages and touching off a two-day siege that eventually cost 100 lives and initiated a new and bloody era in that country’s civil unrest.
“That day,” Abadia says, “I decided to leave Colombia. I was afraid because I saw the country’s future was very dark. And I didn’t want to wait for the war.”
Three months later he landed in Los Angeles with no promise of work and no knowledge of English. Within days, however, he had landed an on-air position at KLVE and within weeks he had convinced legendary KLVE program director Adrian Lopez to let him experiment with tropical music on Saturday nights.
“I love salsa,” he says. “I love dancing salsa. I grew up listening to salsa because in my small town . . . during the day we listened to all the Panamanian radio stations and they played mostly salsa. Very good salsa.”
The show was an immediate hit, more than tripling its share of the market’s radio audience in three months. As a result, it has inspired a number of imitators over the years. Regional Mexican station KLAX-FM (97.9) had a short-lived fling with salsa, for example, and public radio station KPFK-FM (90.7) still airs a two-hour tropical-music show on Saturday nights. But no one has matched KLVE’s success, which is why, 13 years and a couple of program directors later, Abadia and his dance-themed “Sabado Bailables” program are still there.
And though the artists and their music have changed over the years, the biggest change has taken place outside the studio.
“When I started this show, there were only two nightclubs playing that music,” Abadia says. “Now we have more than 50. And nobody used to dance good salsa. Now, everybody dances salsa. Clubs have people teaching how to dance salsa.”
Is It Time to Expand the Show?
So now, Abadia says, it’s time to expand the show. He’s asked KLVE to consider adding a Friday night tropical show, but the station remains unconvinced. And since KLVE’s combination of Spanish-language ballads and adult contemporary music has been the first- or second-most-popular choice for Los Angeles radio listeners for nearly four years, current program director Pio Ferro is reluctant to tamper with a winning formula.
“I’d love to do it Friday or Sunday, but we have to make sure it works,” says Ferro. “And we want to keep the Saturday show as special as possible. There is a market for it. It makes me feel good that salsa music does this well.
“But if you have it on Friday and Saturday or Saturday and Sunday, it’s not as special.”
Which is not to say Ferro, 26, isn’t supportive. In fact, since coming to KLVE four years ago from Miami’s WXDJ--the top tropical-music station in the nation’s top tropical market--Ferro has refined the playlist for Abadia’s program and added more merengue to the mix. And the audience has grown in response.
“It was the one show Pio was thoroughly competent to program,” says Bill Tanner, the vice president of programming for KLVE and Ferro’s boss in Miami.
At about the time Ferro arrived in Los Angeles, Abadia, 42, gave up his full-time deejay gig to devote more time to his fledgling advertising business. But he never gave up the tropical-music show, spending five hours behind the microphone each Saturday before turning the program over to Priscy Fernandez at 1 a.m.
It’s a Way to Stay in Touch With Home
It makes for a long, exhausting work week, which is a price Abadia is only too happy to pay. Because while the show began as a programming experiment--or, perhaps, as a way for a homesick deejay to stay in touch with his homeland--it has become something much bigger. Call it Oscar Abadia’s contribution to community understanding.
Classical music, after all, has long united listeners from disparate backgrounds. So why not salsa?
“Now we have more people listening to salsa, more people dancing salsa, more nightclubs playing salsa,” he says. “I receive a lot of phone calls from Anglos asking me for names of songs, singers, things like that. It’s the only show on KLVE that has listeners from Europe, from Africa, from the United States.
“So I think we are a very good bridge.”
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1061326a545a59550ca71bede0a68c9d | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-aug-31-fi-5240-story.html | Russian Money Trail Leading to More Banks : Scandal: U.S. is investigating international institutions’ reports of ‘suspicious activity’ that might be linked to possible laundering through a New York bank. | Russian Money Trail Leading to More Banks : Scandal: U.S. is investigating international institutions’ reports of ‘suspicious activity’ that might be linked to possible laundering through a New York bank.
Deutsche Bank and other international financial institutions have reported to U.S. authorities on suspicious account activity that could be linked to possible money laundering by Russian organized crime figures through Bank of New York Co., sources said Monday.
Filing the reports to the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network suggests a widening of the federal inquiry into other so-called correspondent banks, which process transactions for other banks in foreign markets.
Investigators use the “suspicious activity reports” to track transfers between financial institutions. One such report, filed in August 1998 by Republic National Bank of New York, helped outline a money trail leading from an account related to Benex International Co.--which has ties to a firm controlled by a reputed Russian mobster--to Bank of New York, one of the nation’s oldest financial institutions.
Since early last year, more than $4.2 billion may have been channeled through the bank by organized crime and Russia’s political elite in order to keep it outside Russia’s fragile economy, according to sources close to the investigation.
The scandal has raised questions about the handling of aid money provided to Russia by the International Monetary Fund. The IMF said Monday that it may continue to keep new installments of a loan to Russia, a spokesman said. Since last year, the IMF has transferred no new money to the Russian central bank.
Rep. James A. Leach (R-Iowa), chairman of the House Banking Committee, has said that the IMF should cease lending until it can establish controls to prevent the money from being illegally diverted. Leach has scheduled hearings on the scandal for next month.
Confirmation of the new suspicious activity reports came as Bank of New York Chairman and Chief Executive Thomas Renyi told employees that the bank was examining its controls on transferred money.
“Our controls environment and practices are sound and effective,” Renyi said in an internal memo. “Nevertheless, we will take every opportunity to enhance them. Working with our staff and with our outside advisors, we are thoroughly examining our funds-transfer controls and processes.”
Bank of New York on Friday fired one of two executives it had suspended amid the fast-expanding investigation. Lucy Edwards, who oversaw Eastern European accounts for the bank in London, had been suspended Aug. 18. She is married to Russian businessman Peter Berlin, who records show is a director of Benex. She has not been charged with any wrongdoing.
A second suspended bank official, Natasha Kagalovsky, a senior vice president who oversaw the bank’s Eastern European business from New York, is married to Konstantin Kagalovsky, who until 1995 was Russia’s representative to the IMF. He also was deputy chairman of one Russian bank, Menatep, one of several large Russian banks that became insolvent last year.
The couple have denied any wrongdoing and issued a statement last week saying that they “have never been involved in money laundering in any way, shape or form.”
IMF officials said Monday that they have found no evidence that aid money was improperly diverted, either through the Bank of New York or other means. IMF aid to Russia has totaled about $16 billion since 1991.
But the case has emphasized the murky nature of international finance in the post-Soviet era. Money has been draining out of Russia at an alarming rate--some estimate $150 billion since 1991--as businesses and the political elite seek to protect their assets from economic collapse and Russia’s tax system.
Investigators now are trying to determine how much--if any--of the money flowing through the bank came from fraud related to Russian government contracts, commodities sales or securities.
But much of the capital flight from Russia is legal. Since Russian banks are notoriously unsafe, legal businesses find ways to convert their earnings to dollars, francs or deutsche marks and transfer them to banks in Switzerland, London or New York.
Still, U.S. officials have reported that Russia’s banks have contributed to the problem by assisting fraudulent schemes that allow profits to be concealed in offshore tax havens.
Investigators also have seen a rise in the use of forged securities by organized crime groups in financial transactions and in the emerging Russian stock market. One person allegedly linked to a similar scheme in the U.S. is Semyon Mogilevich, a reputed mobster who is believed to control YBM Magnex International, a Pennsylvania firm that pleaded guilty in June to securities fraud in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia.
Benex recently vouched for several Mogilevich associates who were seeking visas to enter the U.S., according to people familiar with the case. Russian authorities believed them to be mob associates and blocked the visas, the sources said.
The allegations surrounding Bank of New York are just one of a number of scandals swirling around Russia as political clans fight for influence in advance of December’s elections in that country.
In a separate scandal, President Boris Yeltsin, his family and associates are accused of accepting gifts from a Swiss construction firm that renovated Kremlin properties. The probe was started last spring by a Russian prosecutor who was subsequently forced out of office. The chief investigator in the case, Georgy Chuglazov, was taken off the case Friday and prevented from traveling to Switzerland this week to confer with investigators there.
“It is not a crime to have money in a bank account, even a foreign bank account,” Chuglazov told the Interfax news agency. “It’s another issue altogether, however, if we determine that the money came from illegal sources.”
Leeds reported from Los Angeles. Reynolds reported from Moscow. Times wire services were used in compiling this report.
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4e797036fde76816b519562f3894c0e7 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-dec-03-mn-40140-story.html | Some Angry Residents Join in as Marches Move From Downtown | Some Angry Residents Join in as Marches Move From Downtown
Responding to outraged residents who poured into the streets after fighting off tear gas in their neighborhood, Seattle officials Thursday eased the state of emergency that has paralyzed the inner city--allowing at least two protest marches and scaling back the columns of riot police that have blockaded downtown intersections.
“We need to put an end to this. We need to talk,” Mayor Paul Schell said wearily after a police crackdown against World Trade Organization protesters prompted the backlash in which hundreds of residents came out of their homes and faced off against police.
After a night of confrontations that left some residents of the Capitol Hill neighborhood crouching on the floors of their homes, city leaders faced a barrage of angry criticism Thursday morning. Schell--facing a city as distraught about the police crackdown as over the WTO protesters who have dominated the streets--pledged to “start the healing process.”
“Our primary goal is to regain and maintain peace in our city,” the mayor said. “But we are still in a state of emergency. This is not business as usual. People must understand that.”
A 7 p.m. to 7:30 a.m. curfew went into effect for the third straight night Thursday, but police dramatically scaled back their tactics, if not their numbers. A day after marching through rush-hour traffic--armed with billy clubs and hurling tear gas at protesters in the city’s famous Pike Place Market--police on Thursday issued a permit for one downtown rally and provided a motorcycle escort for illegal demonstrators marching from Capitol Hill to the downtown jail.
Hundreds of protesters surrounded the jail throughout the day seeking the release of more than 500 who have been arrested since demonstrations began. After a long standoff, the protesters left voluntarily after the city agreed to allow legal advisors into the jail to meet with the detainees.
Schell shrank the police perimeter around the WTO talks and said he would consider reducing the bounds of the curfew zone--which now extends over the entire downtown area--and would open a dialogue with protest leaders to make room for peaceful demonstrations and marches.
Curfew Moves Protest to Nearby Community
The turning point came in the predawn hours Thursday, when an eclectic neighborhood of artists, musicians, political activists and students came under siege until about 3 a.m.
According to police, a group of 200 to 300 WTO protesters--edged out of downtown by the curfew--moved into the streets of Capitol Hill, where they blocked two major intersections and threatened officers with rocks, bottles and Molotov cocktails. Several windows at local businesses were smashed. At least some protesters charged the police line, department spokesmen said.
Officers responded with tear gas and concussion grenades, finally deploying a substantial contingent of police and National Guard units outside the Seattle Police Department’s East Precinct headquarters.
By then, the conflict was in the heart of a residential neighborhood. Helicopters with searchlights swooped overhead as tear gas canisters, concussion grenades and rubber bullets whistled through the streets.
Gradually, witnesses said, people began coming out of their homes and joining the protesters, until the crowd grew to nearly 1,000 people--a large number of them residents with no connection to the WTO protests.
“I was rousted from my bed at 9:30 at night by bomb blasts,” said Mike Maloney, a laborer. “I came out from my apartment building and . . . was told to return indoors. And when I asked why, I was sprayed with pepper spray.”
“We were so mad that they were kicking people that my husband and I went out and walked around. We thought if there were more people out there, they would be less likely to kick people,” said Nancy Edwards, a coffee barista who lives on Capitol Hill. “The helicopters kept us up till 3 in the morning.”
Residents told of being chased down side streets and pepper sprayed and of being tear gassed in their own yards.
“I got gassed on my way home from work, way down where no demonstrators were. I could not get home. I was crying hysterically. I’m still shaking,” said Rachel Golden, a research assistant at a Seattle marketing firm. “Everybody was yelling at them, ‘We don’t hate you, we just want to go home. We want our neighborhood back.’ But everywhere I’d go, I kept getting gassed.
“I pay my taxes. I vote, I’m a normal human being,” Golden said. “I’m sure Jefferson was rolling in his grave last night.”
One woman told of being pepper sprayed as she emerged from an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting at a local church. Several residents pulled out handfuls of rubber bullet pellets they found in their yards.
“We had to stuff rags under the door,” said Damon Krane, who said his house was shot at with rubber bullets. “We laid down on the floor just shaking. I know this sounds silly, but we were trying to figure out escape routes from our own house.”
At least three City Council members and a member of the King County Council were on Capitol Hill on Wednesday night, attempting to mediate between residents and police.
Brian Derdowski, the county council member, estimated that at least a third of the people in the street were local residents who had no connection to the protests.
“They just wanted a small sign from the police,” said Derdowski, recalling how he asked officers to take just one step backward. “I believe if I could have had that one step, they [the citizens] would have disbanded. What they really wanted was a little respect,” Derdowski said.
“But they started singing ‘Silent Night,’ and the tear gas started flying.”
The American Civil Liberties Union has challenged the curfew and the police perimeter established around the WTO meetings at the downtown convention center and nearby hotels, arguing that the limitation “prevents all citizens from pursuing their lawful business, including the constitutionally protected business of peaceful, nonviolent protest.”
Resident Support for Police Widespread
But there also has been widespread public support for police enforcement actions in the city. Officers marching through the streets Wednesday night were greeted with expressions of encouragement from many residents on the sidewalk, and protesters often have been jeered. “Go home, hippies!” one man yelled from a balcony.
On Capitol Hill, many business owners and workers said they welcomed the massive police move into the neighborhood. “I’m very happy to have the police here,” said an employee at a local Chevron station. “We’ve got thousands and thousands of gallons of gasoline sitting here, and they’re out there lighting fires.”
Downtown merchants have suffered substantially from vandalism and forced closures that hit in the first days of the Christmas shopping season. In addition to an estimated $1.5 million in damage from vandalism, the Downtown Seattle Assn. has estimated at least $7 million in lost sales so far--with new losses accruing at the rate of $2.5 million a day.
Police officials expressed regret that uninvolved civilians were caught up in the Capitol Hill standoff, but said they had to act on reports that there would be an attempt to seize the precinct headquarters.
“There are a lot of innocent people who are simply trying to go from work to home who have been affected by all of this, and our hearts go out to them,” police Chief Norm Stamper said.
“Innocent citizens and residents are getting caught up in this,” added King County Sheriff Dave Reichert. “That’s the sad, sad part of this entire mess.”
Times staff writer Terry McDermott contributed to this story.
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65cc8e08a361799b0996ff7fe054bf66 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-dec-04-ca-40265-story.html | Patrick Stewart Is a Properly Menacing Scrooge | Patrick Stewart Is a Properly Menacing Scrooge
Charles Dickens’ 1843 morality story, “A Christmas Carol,” is the Yule season’s most engaging and enduring contemporary literary tradition. Its unabashedly sentimental message of redemption and charity is timeless and universal, its tone somehow in conflict with the shrilly jingling cash registers that many retailers depend on for survival.
Arriving somewhat prematurely at 8 p.m. Sunday is TNT’s fine new version with Patrick Stewart all Scroogely as humbugging old Ebenezer on Christmas Eve, spitting icicles at his timid clerk, Bob Cratchit (Richard E. Grant), then retiring to the wintry bleakness of his dusty chambers before the ghosts clank in.
Directed by David Jones and written by Peter Barnes (redeeming himself somewhat after “Noah’s Ark” and “The Magical Legend of the Leprechauns”), this production is handsome and commendable, though not up to the splendid 1984 rendering with George C. Scott on CBS. Like Scott’s, Stewart’s Scrooge is no shriveled, doddering, stereotypical miser running his scrawny fingers through mounds of gold coins. Although properly menacing before seeing the light, he’s also a robust, shrewd, hard-dealing, tightfisted businessman who just happens to have a low opinion of Christmas and those who celebrate it.
Tiny Tim was never tinier, meanwhile, and as always plays tug of war with your heartstrings, as the heavy action takes place in Scrooge’s dank mansion on an evening of tall shadows, gray mist and rattling chains.
First comes long-dead Jacob Marley, having a bad hair day and still tortured after all these years, showing up as a chalky apparition who issues mea culpas to his resistant former business partner. Next comes the Spirit of Christmas Past, a sort of glowing, gauzy cloud of a ghost in drag (What’s that about?) forcing Scrooge to gaze back on the wreckage of his squandered life. Then come the spirits of Christmases present and future, a final view of himself on the slab, unmourned, convincing Scrooge to change his ways and open his heart and purse to the blissfully indigent Cratchits.
Not off to Costco or Toys R Us, but a Scrooge reborn, nevertheless.
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7d4462d298a2008a3be9384c9163de7c | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-dec-07-fi-41290-story.html | Cedar Fair to Ink Deal Today for Water Park | Cedar Fair to Ink Deal Today for Water Park
The Ohio company that owns Knott’s Berry Farm and the Buena Park Hotel said that it expects to complete its purchase today of White Water Canyon, a water park in San Diego County, for $11.5 million.
Cedar Fair LP will trade in White Water’s Western motif for a beach theme, renaming the Chula Vista park Knott’s Soak City USA. It shares the Soak City name with a $25-million water park Cedar Fair is building next to Knott’s in Buena Park and another situated beside Cedar Point, the chain’s flagship amusement park in Sandusky, Ohio.
Egged on by Wall Street, Cedar Fair is expanding its holdings, which include four amusement parks in the East and Midwest. Its national competitors include Premier Parks Inc., whose many acquisitions include Magic Mountain in Valencia and other Six Flags parks.
Locally, Walt Disney Co. will open a second park in Anaheim in 2001, threatening to steal business from Knott’s but also providing potential new customers by bringing tourists to the area.
The amusement park industry has stagnated lately, leaving Knott’s attendance flat at about 3.5 million a year and other Cedar Fair parks flat to lower.
Stand-alone water parks like White Water “are a good growth opportunity,” especially if they can be marketed jointly with other Cedar Fair properties, Knott’s general manager Jack Falfas said.
Falfas and his staff will manage the Chula Vista water park from Buena Park to save money on back-office operations. He said he hopes to get a boost at the gate by advertising and marketing the two water parks together, particularly with promotional partnerships with big retailers.
“We should get better awareness and business for both parks in the end,” he said.
Falfas said final details of the water park purchase were being worked out and the agreement would be signed today before a morning news conference.
The water parks in Buena Park and Chula Vista will operate from May through September. A full-priced adult admission probably will be $19.95, down from $21 at newly acquired White Water Canyon, Falfas said.
Knott’s was family-owned until Cedar Fair bought it for $245 million in December 1997. It since has added two major thrill rides, Supreme Scream and GhostRider, and is building a third, a giant water ride called Perilous Plunge, for next summer. By that time, the separate Soak City water park should be completed, as should the Buena Park Hotel overhaul as a Radisson resort.
In Chula Vista, attractions will be given names such as La Jolla Falls, Palisades Plunge and Solana Storm Watch Tower. Falfas said Cedar Fair will spend $2 million on improvements, adding a six-passenger raft ride called Coronado Express and a kitchen to allow the company to cater events.
White Water Canyon, a 33-acre park, currently has 20 attractions and comes with 32 acres of adjacent land for future expansion. Opened in 1997, it fell into bankruptcy a year later. Cedar Fair is buying it from Fremont Investment & Loan of Anaheim, which foreclosed on a loan to the park’s developers.
Cedar Fair partnership units closed Monday at $19 on the New York Stock Exchange, down 31 cents on the day and 35% below its high of $29.44 in May 1998.
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7d9827c3ab3fd8276d305591c700b34d | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-dec-07-fi-41298-story.html | Exxon Mobil Halts Health Benefits to Domestic Partners | Exxon Mobil Halts Health Benefits to Domestic Partners
Newly merged Exxon Mobil Corp. said Monday that it will cease offering health-care benefits to its employees’ domestic partners, touching off heated criticism among gay rights advocates.
A spokesman for the company said executives overseeing the union of the two oil giants had approved what amounts to an extension of the former Exxon Corp.'s policy.
Under the new policy, which took effect in the Nov. 30 merger, the company offers benefits only to spouses in “legally valid” marriages, spokesman Tom Cirigliano said.
Mobil had offered domestic-partnership coverage since last year. Exxon Mobil will continue extending benefits to unmarried partners of Mobil employees who already were enrolled in the benefits plan. But no new partners can join the health plan.
“We believe that basing benefits coverage on a legally recognized relationship eliminates the need for the company to establish criteria of its own with which to assess the legitimacy of any relationship,” Cirigliano said.
Human Rights Campaign, a Washington-based gay rights lobbying organization, derided the move as a “huge step back in time” and a break from the trend among major corporations to offer domestic-partner benefits.
“The new company clearly does not believe in equal pay for equal work--because that’s what these benefits are,” said Kim Mills, the group’s education director. “This move is bad for business, it’s bad for employee morale and it demonstrates that Exxon Mobil’s human resources policies are mired in the past.”
Companies that provide benefits to unmarried partners include Boeing Co., IBM, Microsoft, Walt Disney Co. and Times Mirror Co. A spokesman for BP Amoco said the company had offered benefits to partners of former Amoco employees since last year and will extend them to partners of the merged firm’s employees beginning in April.
Some municipalities also have introduced same-sex partner benefits. In Los Angeles, about 3% of the city work force have taken advantage of the benefits. Last month, the City Council approved a law requiring large city contractors to offer health benefits to their employees’ partners. Seattle followed a few days later.
Employment experts expressed shock at Exxon Mobil’s decision.
“It would seem extraordinary to me that a company would back away from a policy that has demonstrative positive effects on recruitment and retention,” said Eric Rolfe Greenberg, director of management studies for the American Management Assn. in New York. “In refusing to grant such benefits, inevitably one is saying to talented people, ‘We don’t think you deserve this.’ ”
Only 71 of the Fortune 500 companies either offer same-sex partner benefits or have plans to do so. Yet while providing such benefits has sometimes proved controversial, only a handful of firms have rescinded domestic-partner benefits plans.
Perot Systems, owned by Texas billionaire H. Ross Perot, introduced same-sex partner benefits in 1996, then quit offering them at the start of last year.
A spokeswoman for Perot’s company said it does “not single out a particular lifestyle choice.”
“We just offer the same across the company for everybody.”
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5c5c61ffc98eb7052ecc3e6140b07098 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-dec-08-ca-41569-story.html | Mix Artists, Politics and ‘Cradle Will Rock’ | Mix Artists, Politics and ‘Cradle Will Rock’
“Those who cannot remember the past,” philosopher George Santayana wrote, “are condemned to repeat it,” and writer-director Tim Robbins has no intention of letting anyone forget. His smart and pleasingly ambitious “Cradle Will Rock” is not only a lively and fittingly chaotic look at a time of unprecedented social and political change, it has made the excitement and ferment of America in the volcanic 1930s its own.
Calling itself “a (mostly) true story,” “Cradle” uses its impressive ensemble cast to confidently intercut characters playing out a fistful of stories over an eight-month period from the fall of 1936 through a legendary performance of the Marc Blitzstein musical on June 16, 1937, that gives the film its name.
As a Robert Altman-influenced kaleidoscope of interlocking scenarios--some true, some exaggerated, some completely made up--"Cradle” has more energy than sense at times, and its passion for screwball farce is not always welcome. But its fidelity to the tenor of the times as well as its nervy decision to cut as wide a swath as possible through one of the most exciting and meaningful periods of our history have created something that’s impossible not to both applaud and enjoy.
This is Robbins’ third film as a writer-director (after “Bob Roberts” and “Dead Man Walking”) and as a group they reveal a rare gift for making serious material completely accessible. What Robbins has been understandably attracted to here is a moment in time when artists were socially conscious and they were proud their work was known as committed and political.
Blitzstein’s play (full title “The Cradle Will Rock”), described as the first American musical about serious issues, fits that scenario snugly. Set in the mythical Steeltown, it follows a union struggling against the power of ruling capitalist Mr. Mister. We see Blitzstein (Hank Azaria) composing the musical under the spell of both his dead wife and a still-living Bertolt Brecht, who tells the writer not to forget to include “an artist or two. They are the biggest whores.”
Blitzstein’s is only one of the many stories “Cradle” follows, almost too many to even list. Here’s young Nelson Rockefeller (John Cusack), sparring with Mexican artist Diego Rivera (Ruben Blades) over a mural commissioned for Rockefeller Center. And there’s the real-life Margherita Sarfatti (Susan Sarandon), described by Rivera as “the publicity queen for the new Roman Empire,” trying to get industrialists like fictional steel magnate Gray Mathers (Philip Baker Hall) to offer tangible financial support to the Mussolini regime.
Most of “Cradle’s” drama involves the Federal Theater Project (an offshoot of the New Deal’s Works Progress Administration), an enterprise that reached 25% of the American population and was as close as this country ever came to having a genuine national theater.
Cherry Jones, a superb Tony-winning stage actress, gives her most impressive screen performance to date as Hallie Flanagan, the woman who ran the Federal Theater Project. Jones’ controlled energy and charisma simultaneously drive the film and ground it in a reality it needs, and her’s is the one performance that stands out in a very accomplished crowd.
Flanagan’s most high-profile producing/directing team are John Houseman (Cary Elwes) and Orson Welles (Angus Macfadyen), already old hands at the bickering collaboration that would end up animating the Mercury Theater. They are putting on Blitzstein’s “Cradle,” a production that also employs fictional actor Aldo Silvano (John Turturro), having trouble with his proto-fascist family, and the real-life would-be actress Olive Stanton (Emily Watson), down on her luck and hoping for a chance at a real job.
All this is happening under the malignant shadow of the Dies Committee, a congressional precursor to the House Un-American Activities Committee that is preparing to hold hearings about the presence of communists in the Federal Theater Project.
Cheering the committee along is the humorless Hazel Huffman (Joan Cusack), a worrywart vigilante who fears the Red Menace. And cheering her on is Tommy Crickshaw (Bill Murray), a proud but sour ventriloquist whose main beef about communists is that they’re just not funny.
Though Murray is brilliant as always and convincingly antediluvian, “Cradle’s” more obvious attempts at humor do not come off. Especially irritating is Vanessa Redgrave as madcap social butterfly Countess La Grange, the wife of steelman Mathers, whose protege Carlo (Paul Giamatti) is nowhere near as amusing as the Preston Sturges character he seems a knockoff of.
Willing to move mountains to make its points, “Cradle” squeezes together into its eight months events that were years apart: the Rivera-Rockefeller conflict goes back to 1933, and Hallie Flanagan’s Dies Committee testimony didn’t happen until 1938. More troubling than this minor date switching is the way poor Marion Davies, in reality one of the true talents of the silent screen, is yet again (this time played by Gretchen Mol) maligned as no more than the dumbbell mistress of William Randolph Hearst.
But quibbling with a film this enterprising is really beside the point. As a mixture of drama, humor and history, a melange of seriousness and slapstick, real people and imagined characters, it definitely stands out. This is our history, and it’s good to have it back again.
* MPAA rating: R, for some language and sexuality. Times guidelines: rough language and a few snippets of nudity.
‘Cradle Will Rock’
Hank Azaria: Marc Blitzstein
Ruben Blades: Diego Rivera
Joan Cusack: Hazel Huffman
John Cusack: Nelson Rockefeller
Cary Elwes: John Houseman
Philip Baker Hall: Gray Mathers
Cherry Jones: Hallie Flanagan
Angus Macfadyen: Orson Welles
Bill Murray: Tommy Crickshaw
Vanessa Redgrave: Countess La Grange
Susan Sarandon: Margherita Sarfatti
Jamey Sheridan: John Adair
John Turturro: Aldo Silvano
Emily Watson: Olive Stanton
Released by Touchstone Pictures. Director Tim Robbins. Producers Jon Kilik, Lydia Dean Pilcher, Tim Robbins. Executive producers Louise Krakower and Frank Beacham, Allan Nicholls. Screenplay Tim Robbins. Cinematographer Jean Yves Escoffier. Editor Geraldine Peroni. Costumes Ruth Myers. Music David Robbins. Production design Richard Hoover. Art director Peter Rogness. Set decorator Debra Schutt. Running time: 2 hours, 12 minutes.
AMC Century 14, 10250 Santa Monica Blvd., Century City, (310) 553-8900; Cineplex Odeon Showcase, 614 N. La Brea, Hollywood, (323) 777-FILM #175; Mann Criterion 6, 1313 Third St. Promenade, Santa Monica, (310) 395-1599; Playhouse 7, 673 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, (626) 844-6500.
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fde1fa7f54d9a9cf67408c23bc68025d | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-dec-09-mn-42030-story.html | The Pain of Being Gentrified | The Pain of Being Gentrified
Nestled along a southern stretch of Santa Monica Bay, Manhattan Beach was for decades a middle-class ocean lover’s paradise.
It was a place where a teacher’s salary or an aerospace worker’s wage could pay the mortgage on a comfortable, if modest, house within walking or bicycling distance of the beach. Let the rich have their Malibus and Newport Beaches--Manhattan Beach’s affordability made possible a seashore lifestyle that was famously laid-back and unpretentious.
“You could pound nails for a living and afford to live in a place where you could go surfing every day or go down to the beach to watch the sun set,” said John McDonald, who grew up in Manhattan Beach, the son of a mail carrier and a sometime waitress.
Today, McDonald, who owns Stone’s Throw, a communications company two blocks from the beach, and his wife, Tawny, a paralegal, feel lucky to still live in town. They bought their recently remodeled house a dozen years ago, before an influx of well-heeled home buyers from the entertainment and high-tech industries fed a dizzying spike in property values and began transforming Manhattan Beach into an enclave for the wealthy.
Longtime residents have watched big new homes rise on the postage stamp lots that once held the cozy bungalows of their longtime friends and neighbors, while the town’s average annual household income climbed past $122,000 and the median home resale price topped $676,000. It is no longer uncommon for homes to sell for $1 million or more, often in mostly cash deals.
Downtown, stylish boutiques, coffeehouses and pricey restaurants replaced an appliance store, a movie theater and a pharmacy, each change signaling that another piece of the California Dream is slipping beyond the reach of the working and middle classes.
Similar shifts have occurred in other California coastal communities, including Santa Monica two to three decades earlier, and the Belmont Shore section of Long Beach, according to David Dale-Johnson, an associate business professor who heads USC’s real estate studies program.
But the gentrification of Manhattan Beach has been more dramatic, fueled by the expansion of film and television studios and new media companies into a South Bay formerly dependent on aerospace and defense. The opening of the Century Freeway, the community’s reputation for good schools and its small town atmosphere added to its appeal.
Some officials and residents stress that new shops and an influx of well-to-do families are good news, trends that ensure Manhattan Beach’s demographic vitality and financial health. Still, resentment of the newcomers and the changes they are bringing simmers among longtime residents of this town of 33,000 who mourn the loss of familiar landmarks, faces and a way of life as they knew it.
Many who grew up in Manhattan Beach can no longer afford to buy a home there; nor can newer generations of the town’s teachers, police officers, firefighters and municipal employees.
Barbara Poznik, for example, is a third-generation Manhattanite whose maternal grandparents, George and Agnes Lindsey, arrived in 1920 and helped develop the city. She and her husband recently bought a house in less pricey Redondo Beach, a nearby community she finds more to her liking.
Manhattan Beach “has changed so much that I wouldn’t live here now, even if we could afford it,” Poznik said.
Personal evidence of the transformation she dislikes came a few years back, in the form of an indignant note a new neighbor left on her father’s trash cans. He had forgotten to bring them back off the street on collection day.
That may seem like a small thing in the complicated life of a Southern California town, but not to Poznik. Most longer-established residents would have let the matter rest for a day or so, she says, or even offered to take in the cans themselves. The acid-toned note personified to Poznik some newcomers’ “lack of respect for the older people who built this community and their lack of tolerance for people who don’t have as much money as they do.”
Some might see that assessment as unjustly harsh and say that change is difficult but inevitable.
Average Household Income Soars
Evidence of the gentrification abounds. Average annual household income in 1980 was $32,470 in town; by 1990 it was $88,700, according the the U.S. Census Bureau. That amount had risen to $122,194 by 1998, based on estimates by Claritas, a demographic information and market research firm.
By 2003, Claritas estimates, the average household income will be $143,111, with 7.5% of households earning $500,000 a year or more. For Los Angeles County as a whole, median household income was an estimated $40,344 last year and is projected to be only slightly higher--$41,492--by 2003.
Annette Graw, a real estate broker and Manhattan Beach resident since 1972, said the city is merely the forerunner in a housing market boom that has spread south to Hermosa Beach and Redondo Beach and is now showing up in Manhattan’s northern neighbor, El Segundo, long considered the plain Jane of South Bay beach towns.
“Families who live in Pacific Palisades or Brentwood and are facing private school tuitions for their three kids are finding they can get more house for their money and send their kids to the public schools,” said Graw of South Bay Brokers.
Enrollment in the well-regarded Manhattan Beach Unified School District ballooned 21% over five years, to 5,779 by the fall of 1998, district officials said. Countywide, kindergarten through 12th grade enrollment in public schools rose 10% during the same period.
Many of the million-dollar home sales have basically been cash transactions, Graw said, an indication that property is being snapped up by people “who have done very well,” including star athletes, television and movie actors and producers. Golf champion Tiger Woods, for example, recently bought a townhouse in the city’s Sand Section. And Clippers center Michael Olowokandi just purchased a new home east of Sepulveda Boulevard for $1.3 million, according to the builder and seller, Rich V.R., who shortened his Indian surname to initials to make it simpler for business reasons.
Veda Casper of ReMax Beach Cities Realty said it is not unusual now for people with children to pay $700,000 for a small home--then knock it down and replace it with a much bigger one.
About a decade ago, the city restricted house sizes, lowered height limits and increased the distance homes had to be set back from the perimeter of lots. But some residents complained that the changes did not go far enough. And as the knock-down trend continues, longtime residents see their neighborhoods morphing almost overnight.
The changes are taking place all across town--in the Sand Section of oceanfront homes along the Strand, in the Tree Section of shady, family-friendly streets a few blocks inland, and even east of Sepulveda, an area once looked down upon by residents lucky enough to live closer to the beach.
Resentment Among Longtime Residents
Jeanne Jackson, a freelance writer whose comfortable Tree Section home is set in a shady garden on a double lot, wrote a newspaper commentary recently about life in a construction zone as small, single-story houses are being torn down to make way for space-gobbling structures that crowd their neighbors. She complained about the parade of prospective new residents snaking through narrow streets in big luxury cars and the quickening pace of life.
“After that article appeared, I got calls from people I had never even heard of, telling me I had articulated what they have been feeling,” Jackson said.
As she spoke, a bulldozer down the street was knocking down a modest home that had been owned by one family for about 50 years. The developer, V.R., who built and sold Olowokandi’s house and many others in town, said he is asking $1.79 million for the house going up in its place.
V.R. said his building and real estate practice is so busy it prompted him and his wife, Bhavna Rohera, also a real estate agent, to move with their two small children from the Palos Verdes Peninsula to Manhattan Beach.
“There are always going to be people who don’t like change, but life is too short to worry about everybody,” said V.R., adding that most people “are very friendly . . . they accept the change.”
“Most people like the fact that the values of the properties are going up and the whole town is getting very upscale, with lots of professional people moving in.”
Not everyone agrees, including a longtime homeowner on a block with three of V.R.'s projects.
“A lot of the older people feel quite resentful having an ‘estate’ built on a small lot,” said Wilma Tafoya, a retired teacher who moved to Manhattan Beach 44 years ago and raised four children there.
She’s grateful that most of her new neighbors are friendly and thoughtful and that she and her husband live in a community that has never had to grapple with deteriorating neighborhoods, she said. But she regrets the price of prosperity nonetheless.
“We feel a real sense of loss,” Tafoya said of the now-gone homes with their generous, tree-shaded yards.
One of the newcomers to Jackson’s and Tafoya’s street, Inga Middleton, said she is aware of some longtime residents’ discomfort and has gone out of her way to fit in to what she says is a very friendly, close-knit block.
Middleton, who suspended her career as an attorney to stay home with her sons, ages 2 years and 4 months, and her husband, Tom, a marketing executive with General Dynamics Worldwide Telecommunications Systems, bought their 2,400-square-foot home in June for $626,000. They assured the neighbors, who brought them cookies and invited them to block parties, that they weren’t going to tear down or substantially change their new home.
“People have been way more friendly than I had expected,” said Inga Middleton, who moved to the beach from Westchester, near Los Angeles International Airport. But when she attended a City Council meeting recently on traffic congestion, she “heard a lot of animosity from some of the old-timers.
“People are very proud of their community, and so I sort of understand [their resentment of its changing], but it’s kind of sad,” Middleton said. “It’s a great community, a perfect choice for us.”
The city’s downtown district has caught the wave of affluence and ridden it to commercial success.
Ron Guidone was a bit ahead of the curve when, in 1981, he opened Mangiamo, a Northern Italian seafood restaurant that was one of the first upscale eateries in town. Elegant and intimate, half a block from the pier, the restaurant did well despite some locals’ complaints about its higher prices and sophisticated style.
“It has really progressed from that time,” said Guidone, “There are lots of people with lots of money moving in, and that’s been good for us. . . . That’s our kind of business.”
“I do hear grumblings” about the changes in the town, Guidone said, but he added that Manhattan Beach is still a place where “plumbers can mix with multimillionaire stockbrokers . . . and the community is still comfortable with that diversity.”
For Wilmer Drake, who moved to town as a child 77 years ago, many of the changes have not been positive. A trustee with the Manhattan Beach Historical Society, Drake leads walking tours and points out things as they used to be: the dunes leveled to provide sand for Waikiki beach in Honolulu, the site of the first City Hall, a former public bathhouse.
If asked, Drake will say that he misses the affordable, family-owned businesses that not long ago dotted Manhattan Beach Boulevard and Manhattan and Highland avenues.
“We need more places to buy medium-priced clothing again,” Drake said.
Many of the well-heeled new residents tend as a group to be more highly educated and more assertive than their predecessors, USC professor Dale-Johnson said.
“The new people coming in put more demands on schools and city services. They bring more commuter traffic, and they have new dreams that are very different from those of the longtime residents,” said Dale-Johnson, who, as an 18-year Manhattan Beach resident, has watched the changes first-hand.
Mayor Linda Wilson said the newcomers tend to become involved in the community and are helping shape city policies ranging from traffic solutions to how to redevelop a former pottery factory site in the heart of town.
The new residents expect high-quality municipal services, she said, but those demands ultimately lead to improvements for all. “Change is inevitable,” Wilson said. “We can’t hold it back, but we can try to mold it, and that’s what we’ve been trying to do.”
(What remains about the same is the town’s racial composition, which is now reportedly 87% white, with Asians and Latinos the largest minority groups.)
Longtime resident Bob White tries to keep a sense of humor about the “monster houses” that have been springing up in his ocean view Hill Section neighborhood. He and a friend once had a sign professionally made and stuck it in front of one particularly large manse under construction. “Opening Soon: Fred’s Taco Stand,” it read, hoping to pierce its pretensions.
And he’s taken to naming some others he considers especially overdone. (He calls one “Temple to the Sun” after the solar symbol on its entryway design.)
But he wouldn’t trade life in Manhattan Beach for anyplace else.
“Despite the incursion of the yuppies, I don’t know of any place else I’d rather live,” White said. “I’m happy as hell.”
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83e6df175075ecfdf92a7037bf75f79b | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-dec-10-me-42501-story.html | Gun Show Is Leaving Pomona for Las Vegas | Gun Show Is Leaving Pomona for Las Vegas
Blaming a recently passed ordinance banning firearm sales on county property, officials of the Great Western Gun Show said Thursday that they are leaving Los Angeles and moving to Las Vegas.
Los Angeles County has been home to the gigantic gun show, one of the nation’s largest, for 31 years--22 of which were at the Fairplex in Pomona.
The decision is the culmination of a heated gun control controversy that took front-burner status after the rash of mass gun assaults across the country, particularly the August shooting at the North Valley Jewish Community Center in Granada Hills that wounded three young children, a camp counselor and a receptionist.
The move to the Las Vegas Convention Center will cost Fairplex $600,000 a year, about one-third of its annual earnings.
“Even though we are highly enthusiastic about this move and look forward to new relationships in the ‘entertainment capital of the world,’ we would never have considered leaving the fairgrounds had it not been for the ill-advised and, we believe, illegal ordinance passed last September by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors,” said Karl Amelang, president of Great Western Shows Inc.
“This entire situation was orchestrated by one supervisor, Zev Yaroslavsky, to further his political ambitions,” he said.
Yaroslavsky spearheaded the drive for the new law, which passed on a 3-2 vote, but it has been held in abeyance through a court injunction pending outcome of a suit by Great Western. The injunction will allow a show scheduled for this weekend--the last in Pomona, organizers say.
Citing that injunction, Yaroslavsky refused to accept the blame for the show’s departure. “Spare me the crocodile tears,” he said.
He said the injunction would have allowed the events to continue at least until the suit was resolved. Still, he said, he isn’t sorry to see the shows go.
“I’m surprised, but I can’t say I’m sorry that we won’t have guns and ammo at our fairgrounds,” he said. “Our ordinance would not have prohibited them from having a gun show, because it only would have prevented them from selling guns.”
The show runs four times a year, commonly drawing about 35,000 people to each of its largest exhibitions--in April and October. The October show, coming on the heels of widespread news coverage about the county ordinance, attracted a record 40,000 people.
Thursday’s announcement caught Fairplex President Jim Henwood by surprise. Saying he did not know about the move until informed of it by The Times, Henwood said it will “leave us in a very precarious position.”
Fairplex leases the fairgrounds from the county for $750,000 a year, Henwood said. It conducts the annual Los Angeles County Fair as well as a host of consumer shows, trade shows and other exhibitions.
But, aside from the fair, the gun show was the largest.
Henwood said the county should make up the money until he can find a replacement for the gun show.
“We are being deprived of our rights to operate a business,” he said. “I’m hoping the county will recognize and support our need for replacement funding until we can replace Great Western, which will be a very challenging task.”
Yaroslavsky conceded the impact of Great Western’s departure and said the county has been negotiating with Fairplex over “how to mitigate the economic impact.”
In passing the ordinance, county supervisors said the gun shows had become shopping centers for the illegal sale of weapons.
Shortly before the ban’s passage, the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, along with Pomona police and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, made contact with a gun show exhibitor who allegedly sold undercover officers six machine guns and later tried to deliver 10 other automatic weapons. That case is pending.
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d40794c6c67138b7a26d515eff05b7ba | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-dec-10-mn-42521-story.html | Yeltsin Reminds U.S. of Moscow’s Nuclear Capability | Yeltsin Reminds U.S. of Moscow’s Nuclear Capability
Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin bluntly reminded President Clinton on Thursday that Moscow has a vast nuclear arsenal and railed at the U.S. leader for trying to meddle in Russia’s internal affairs.
“Yesterday, Clinton took the liberty of putting pressure on Russia,” Yeltsin said during a visit to Beijing. “He obviously must have forgotten for a few seconds, a minute or half a minute, what Russia is and that Russia possesses a full arsenal of nuclear weapons. He’s forgotten it, and that’s why he’s decided to flex his muscles, as they say.”
In recent days, Clinton and European leaders have criticized Russia’s war in the separatist republic of Chechnya, particularly condemning a warning by the Russian military that as many as 40,000 civilians could face death by bombing if they do not leave Grozny, the Chechen capital, by Saturday.
Yeltsin’s outburst came during a two-day trip to Beijing to win support for the war from Chinese President Jiang Zemin--and to present a united front against what both Russia and China see as an unhealthy balance of global power in America’s favor. It was a harsh public attack on the U.S. president he called his “friend” only a few months ago.
“I want to tell Clinton through you that he shouldn’t forget the world he’s living in,” Yeltsin told select reporters attending a meeting between himself and Li Peng, chairman of China’s legislature. “It’s never been the case, and it will never be the case, that he can dictate how the whole world should live, work and play. No! And once again, no!”
Yeltsin’s performance was reminiscent of Soviet leader Nikita S. Khrushchev’s 1956 harangue about the West in which he said, “We will bury you!”
Yeltsin, known for making unpredictable comments during his trips abroad, delivered Thursday’s short speech slowly, clearly and without notes. The remarks came one day after the often ailing president became befuddled during a speech in Moscow and had to be told by an aide that he had reached the end.
The attack on Clinton was not broadcast on Chinese news programs and appeared intended primarily for Russia’s domestic audience. With nine days left before parliamentary elections, Yeltsin has engaged in a campaign of anti-Western rhetoric. While he remains wildly unpopular at home, his strong words could give a boost to Kremlin allies seeking to increase their share of seats in the lower house of parliament, the Duma.
When asked about Yeltsin’s comments, Clinton said he is aware of Russia’s role in the world and its military strength--indeed, although Russia has suffered many setbacks since the collapse of the Soviet Union, no U.S. official has ever suggested that its nuclear arsenal is not in working order.
“I haven’t forgotten that,” Clinton said in Washington. “You know, I didn’t think he’d forgotten that America was a great power when he disagreed with what I did in Kosovo.”
He continued: “Let’s not talk about what the leaders are saying and all these words of criticism. Let’s focus on what the country is doing. Is it right or wrong? Will it work or not? What are the consequences?”
In Moscow, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin sought to play peacemaker. Russia maintains very good relations with the United States, he said, and Clinton’s criticism of Moscow’s actions in Chechnya “was motivated by the wish to save Russia additional problems.”
“I would consider it absolutely incorrect to produce the impression that some kind of period of cooling off of relations between Russia and the United States has begun or is beginning,” the prime minister said.
Putin said leaflets dropped by warplanes onto Grozny warning residents to evacuate the city were not meant as a threat but were motivated by concern for civilians’ safety. “There was no ultimatum but only a warning to the civilians asking them to leave Grozny,” he said. “It was dictated by concern for their lives.”
On his arrival in Beijing after an overnight flight, a slow-moving yet animated Yeltsin exchanged bear hugs with Jiang before getting down to informal talks with the Chinese president, Li and Premier Zhu Rongji at the Diaoyutai State Guest House.
Later, Yeltsin and Jiang looked on as their foreign ministers signed accords settling old border disagreements, including a dispute over islands in the Amur River, where Chinese and Russian troops skirmished briefly in 1969.
Russian Foreign Minister Igor S. Ivanov said “relations between Russia and China have risen to their highest level in the past 50 years.” China’s leaders, he added, “completely understood and fully supported” Russia’s actions in fighting what he called terrorism and extremism in Chechnya.
In Helsinki, meanwhile, the Finnish hosts of a European Union summit that opens today moved the Chechnya issue to the top of the agenda as the deadline for the evacuation of Grozny approached.
Finnish Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen told one national newspaper that the 15-member body will weigh financial as well as political sanctions to pressure Russia to abandon its assault on the republic, where more than 240,000 civilians have been driven from their homes.
“Our aim is to pressure Russia toward a political solution and to alleviate the humanitarian situation,” said Alec Aalto, Lipponen’s chief advisor for EU affairs. As soon as the summit opens, he said, aides will begin drafting a collective declaration for discussion by the heads of state and government at their working lunch.
*
Times staff writer Paddock reported from Moscow and special correspondent Kuhn from Beijing. Times staff writers Carol J. Williams in Helsinki and James Gerstenzang in Washington contributed to this report.
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e5a6bc4096f5d31bd6dd78a82beeaa43 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-dec-13-he-43337-story.html | The Organic Roots of Social Ineptitude | The Organic Roots of Social Ineptitude
Yes, we know what you’re thinking, even if you don’t say it. And now it’s been scientifically proved. Researchers in Britain have isolated the area in the brain that gives us the ability to read people’s minds. “Mentalizing,” that is, reacting to others based on what we think are their intentions and desires, is a skill that’s hard-wired into our brains, says British scientist Christopher Frith. The findings of Frith and his team appeared in last month’s Science magazine.
Thus, what some call social intelligence is mostly something we’re born with, though some of it is learned. Magnetic resonance imaging studies confirmed that when a person imagines what another is thinking or feeling, the lights go on in the brain’s prefrontal cortex. (Hence, we presume, the phrases “dim bulb,” and “the lights are on, but nobody’s home.”) This is another one of those qualities that separate us--well, some of us--from the apes.
“Most of the time we’re not responding to people’s actual words but to the intentions behind the words,” Frith says. Which is why my kids usually know I mean “Pipe down!” when I say, “Could you two possibly be any louder?!!”
People with a deficient prefrontal cortex don’t seem to realize what others are thinking and are socially inept as a consequence. And here I just thought these people were raised by wolves. And though his studies don’t yet confirm this, Frith suspects women have more of this skill than men do.
Apparently so, given the example of mentalizing he cites: “Say I’m sitting quietly at home. My wife comes in after an exhausting day of shopping and says, ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ The correct response to her,” Frith says, “would be, ‘Yes, I’ll make one right away.’ ” For himself, one presumes.
Mice One, Chickens Zero
And now we’re feeling really insulted. After all these years of scientists comparing us to mice or lab rats, which was bad enough, we’re now told we have more in common genetically with chickens.
According to research published in Nature magazine last month, the gene maps of chickens and humans are more similar than those of humans and rodents. They speculate that this is because over the years rodents have evolved faster than humans or our fine-feathered hens, which I’m suddenly more fond of.
And if the mice get word of this, imagine the protest. I can see them now, forming picket lines outside labs and toting signs saying, “Go Pick on the Chickens, You Clucks.”
Get Tested, See a Show
Turns out that of all the efforts to get people tested for the HIV virus--and they range from common-sense appeals to scare tactics to billboards--one AIDS clinic director has finally hit on an apparent winner: movie passes.
The entertaining approach was Wilbert Jordan’s idea. An infectious-disease specialist, Jordan heads the Oasis Clinic and AIDS Program at King-Drew Medical Center in Los Angeles. He asked 31 of his patients, all HIV positive, to bring in people for testing whom they knew who might also be HIV positive. In exchange, both the patient and the person coming in got free movie passes.
The result? Seventy-seven people got tested, and 37, or 48%, tested positive. Of those, 35 are getting treatment. Jordan notes that in anonymous-testing centers, usually only 1.5% of the people coming in, or three out of 200, test positive, .
Jordan says he was “astounded” by the program’s success. But is it really just the free offer? Could this be the answer to coax women to get mammograms or men to get prostate screenings? Probably not.
In hindsight, Jordan says, the program’s success is because people at risk for HIV often don’t have much of a support group. But when a friend whom they know is HIV positive comes with them to the test, they know they don’t have to find out the news alone. And those with HIV are the best resource for finding others who may have the virus. That model doesn’t work for cancer.
Though some people have questioned the ethics of a program that would trade movie passes for AIDS tests, Jordan defends it: “Many people choose a phone company because they get free minutes for signing. Incentives are everywhere.”
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23d90eadca84d3da7b468a91f6e20749 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-dec-13-mn-43419-story.html | Japan Is Flush With Obsession | Japan Is Flush With Obsession
It’s got wings, it’s sensitive, it’s smart. It cares, it knows when you’re around, it bleats when you arrive. Ignore it and you could be sorry. Treat it well and it will comfort you in your old age.
A new kind of house pet? No, it’s the Japanese toilet in all its glory. And if you believe its makers, it’s only getting better.
Japan has an enduring fascination with the toilet, replete with cutting-edge intelligent-toilet research, toilet Web sites, symposiums, antique toilet museums, solid 24-karat-gold johns and official Toilet Days. Nowhere else on Earth do so many people spend so much money on such expensive thrones.
Japan’s enthusiasm is largely lost on foreigners. In sharp contrast to their receptiveness to the Japanese cameras, autos and Walkmans that have taken the world by storm, few Americans or Europeans seem to covet Japan’s super bowls--some of which can cost $4,000.
Now major Japanese manufacturers hope to change that by creating something with more universal appeal. Their latest project: a toilet that doubles as a doctor’s office.
At Matsushita’s research center in Tokyo, scientists explain how they are working on embedding technology in the porcelain that will catch a urine sample, shoot it full of lasers and in short order test it for glucose, kidney disease and eventually even cancer.
One of the researchers, Tatsuro Kawamura, says future smart toilets will compile and compare medical results day by day, allowing doctors to spot important changes.
Japan’s undisputed king of toilets is Toto Ltd., which has noticed the enormous profits ahead in serving Japan’s rapidly aging population, although it’s moving slower on the medical front.
Toto set the industry standard in the 1980s with its high-tech Washlet, which got worldwide publicity at the time. With the slogan “Even your bottom wants to stay clean,” it built mass appeal in Japan for the $1,000-and-up toilets previously confined to sanitariums and hospitals.
Nearly 20 years later, these once-luxury items can be found in about 30% of Japanese homes. The fully configured Washlet, the Lexus of toiletry, has enough lights, hoses, buttons, remote controls and temperature and water-pressure adjustments to bowl over even the most avid gadget freak.
Master the Washlet’s controls--many foreigners don’t and emerge soaking and embarrassed--and your bum will be warmed even as your undercarriage is squirted with warm water and blow-dried, obviating the need for toilet paper.
“Once you use it, you wonder how you could ever do without it,” says Mariko Fujiwara, a researcher with the Hakuhodo Institute of Life and Living.
What’s behind Japan’s keen interest in toiletry?
Takahiko Furata, director of Aomori University’s Modern Social Studies Institute, cites the Shinto religion’s traditional emphasis on physical and spiritual cleanliness.
“Japanese hate impurities and think it’s important to have a place to remove them. That place is the toilet,” he says. “Japanese toilet culture is based on this idea.”
Others such as Eiko Mizuno, a researcher at the Life Design Institute, note that the toilet may be one of the few places people in crowded Japan can go for a few minutes of quiet--akin to the automobile for some Americans.
And Dr. Hiroshi Ojima, a proctologist at Japan’s Social Insurance Central Hospital, traces the popularity of Washlets to Japan’s high constipation rate and low fiber intake relative to many other countries.
Whatever the reason, it all spells big bucks. Toto’s most complicated model for the elderly is the EWCS120K, which includes armrests and something resembling an ejection seat for people unable to stand without help. A quick glance at its most elaborate configuration leaves the impression there’s a small aircraft in your bathroom.
A Guide to Public Restrooms
Japan’s toilet culture isn’t limited to the plumbing, however.
One of several Japanese toilet Web sites asks volunteers to visit and rate Tokyo’s public restrooms, a sort of twisted Zagat Survey. It invites photos of the most disgusting cases and posts them in the “Harsh Site of the Day” section.
Another site, called Toilet Television, offers global comparisons and a quiz. Sample question: What percentage of the world uses toilet paper? Answer: 30%--alternatives include hands, water, sand, small rocks, mud, leaves and rope. In the old days, Japanese used seaweed, while Americans used corn husks, it adds helpfully.
For those in search of more theory, the southern island of Kyushu hosted in mid-November the 15th Japanese National Toilet Symposium, where 500 toilet experts from 15 countries and global groups schmoozed, feasted and voted for their 10 favorite toilets. In past years, the group has also celebrated the toilet’s importance with an official day devoted to it.
And people intrigued by toilet paper can chase down Hideo Nishioka, chairman of the Japan Toilet Assn. His personal toilet paper collection features 400 samples from more than 50 nations. One of his favorites: an Italian roll with a rendering of Botticelli’s famous painting “The Birth of Venus.”
Out in the marketplace, meanwhile, the Japanese are spending more than $100 million annually on over-the-counter pills designed to prevent any odors they might generate while luxuriating on all these fancy Washlets.
They’re also shelling out to fight noise pollution and save water. It seems that many Japanese women flush repeatedly to hide embarrassing sounds. Now some bathrooms include the “Sound Princess,” a device that mimics the sound of flushing water in place of the real thing.
There are toilet exhibits and museums. In Tokoname, near Nagoya, the “Kiln Plaza” museum displays porcelain toilets dating back 150 years. Rioh Semba, the collector who owns most of the antiques, says his interest in tea-ceremony porcelain sparked this rather unusual collection. He now owns 500 commodes.
A toilet museum with more popular appeal, meanwhile, is the World Toilet Exhibit in Nakatado-gun on the island of Shikoku. Unicharm, a sanitary-napkin company, contributed $535,000 in 1994 to craft a solid gold toilet and gold bathroom slippers (the ultra-clean Japanese use different footwear for the john), an exhibit that has wowed the crowds from the start.
The willingness of the Japanese to spend big reached full flower in the 1980s, as disposable income grew, says Miho Mizuhaki, a planning official with Inax, Japan’s No. 2 toilet maker. “That’s when toilet culture really started to take off,” she adds.
Not everyone hails this, however. In fact, some, like the Toilet Assn.'s Nishioka, think Japan has gone a bit too far.
“The Japanese have become too obsessed with cleanliness,” he says, citing recent news reports about students who refuse to use school bathrooms that don’t have Washlets.
Japan wasn’t always this way. A century ago, it used some pretty basic technology, if you can call it that. Until the early 1900s, human waste generated in the cities was hauled to the country and sold to farmers as fertilizer. The Hakuhodo Institute’s Fujiwara says dealers paid more for rich people’s waste because their diet was better.
In fact, when it comes to johns, Japan is a Johnny-come-lately. For most of its history, Japan used a variation on the hole in the ground. Plumbing didn’t make much of an appearance until the 1923 Yokohama earthquake underscored the danger of disease.
After World War II, as the Western toilet became more popular, Japan relied on a tried-and-true tactic to catch up: It borrowed toilet technology from France, Switzerland and the United States, reverse-engineered it, improved it and voila: the Washlet.
“Japanese are keen about taking foreign ideas and fully developing them,” said Aomori University’s Furata. “It’s a basic Japanese trait.”
An Innovation That Went Nowhere
One of the dead ends on the road to high-tech toiletry can be found in the bowels of Japan’s National Stadium, the showcase of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. Directly under the field along a low, dusty hallway lined with electric wires sits one of Japan’s few remaining female urinals, several hundred of which were made by Toto between 1951 and 1968.
The female urinal, which rises out of the floor like a modified cone, is a Japanese invention meant to save time. It never caught on.
“Women just didn’t like to use them,” says Miyuki Matsumoto, a Toto planning official.
After almost 20 years of Washlet revenue, Toto is searching for its next mega-hit as the old machines start to break down. The firm is weathering the bad publicity that followed when four old Washlets caught fire, prompting headlines such as “Check behind you.”
Meanwhile, as Japan contemplates how far it has come with its advanced digital toilet technology, some wonder if there’s a danger Japanese toilets will run amok Jan. 1. Are they Y2K compliant?
“They all include computers,” said Inax’s Mizuhaki. “But we don’t expect anything bad to happen. We don’t see any danger that the water will shoot out or keep on flushing.”
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Etsuko Kawase of The Times’ Tokyo Bureau contributed to this report.
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db993c7acd26f14d467cc2269e801016 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-dec-15-mn-44069-story.html | Bosnian Serb Gets 40-Year Sentence | Bosnian Serb Gets 40-Year Sentence
A Bosnian Serb who nicknamed himself “Adolf” and allegedly boasted of killing up to a score of Muslims each day before his morning coffee was sentenced Tuesday to 40 years in prison, the harshest punishment yet handed down by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.
Thirty-one-year-old Goran Jelisic stood impassively before the United Nations tribunal in The Hague as the sentence against him was read.
The presiding judge, Claude Jorda of France, said the acts of the former official at the infamous Luka prison in the northern Bosnian town of Brcko had “shocked the conscience of mankind.”
Jelisic was convicted Oct. 19 of 31 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity. He had pleaded guilty in the torture and murders of 13 Muslims and Croats in 1992, as the former Yugoslav republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina plunged into civil war.
During the trial, a parade of witnesses recounted how Jelisic pummeled his victims with clubs and pitched their bodies into a ditch or river. One witness said Jelisic had boasted publicly of killing 10 to 20 Muslims each day before breakfast.
An ex-farmer who, at age 23, was put in charge of 100 guards at the camp, Jelisic acknowledged taking his nickname in tribute to Hitler.
“Your scornful attitude toward your victims, your enthusiasm for committing the crimes, the inhumanity of the crimes and your dangerous nature [are] especially aggravating circumstances,” Jorda told him during sentencing.
Judges, however, had earlier thrown out a charge of genocide brought against the Bosnian Serb. Jorda said Tuesday that although Jelisic had engaged in “incontestably odious, discriminatory behavior,” it had not been proved that he acted “with the intention of destroying, wholly or partly, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.”
The judge also said prosecutors had failed to prove that any act of genocide occurred.
Jelisic denied the claims of the prosecution that he had killed more than 100 people. The court’s ruling in his case indicated that the tribunal, created by the U.N. Security Council in 1993, will continue to apply a stringent standard to justify any conviction on grounds of genocide.
The tribunal to date has convicted eight suspects from the former Yugoslav federation of war crimes, crimes against humanity and violations of the Geneva Conventions, but it has found no one guilty of genocide.
Prosecutors had sought a life sentence for Jelisic, but spokesman Paul Risley said they were satisfied with the 40-year term. Risley also said they were considering whether to ask for reinstatement of the charge of genocide.
Veselin Londrovic, Jelisic’s lawyer, immediately said he would appeal the sentence.
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8dd03a6aaeb64ee2a339d42bd749b21c | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-dec-16-me-44518-story.html | Preparing to Combat a Deadly Influenza Pandemic | Preparing to Combat a Deadly Influenza Pandemic
“It is horrible. One can stand it to see one, two or 20 men die, but to see these poor devils dropping like flies sort of gets on your nerves. We have been averaging about 100 deaths per day, and still keeping it up. There is no doubt in my mind that there is a new infection here, but what I don’t know.”
Those words do not belong to a science fiction story. They come from a letter written in 1918 by a doctor in Camp Devens, Mass.
The killer was the influenza virus. It would spread in a matter of months and take the lives of more than 20 million people around the world--more than World War I would claim.
And it would strike again.
Two more global epidemics, or pandemics, of influenza started in Asia in 1957 and 1968, causing millions of deaths worldwide, including about 100,000 in the United States. In fact, some experts say that evidence of influenza pandemics taking place every few decades can be tracked down to at least the 1700s.
Such regularity, many believe, is an omen of the inevitable return of another pandemic. So certain are they of a comeback that researchers such as biologist Ann Reid of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology refer to the present as an inter-pandemic period.
The question, say Reid and many of her colleagues, is whether countries are prepared for the day when the intermission is over.
If a pandemic hit today, between 89,000 and 207,000 Americans would probably die, with economic losses amounting to more than $70 billion, according to estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But the threat of a pandemic seems distant and unreal, perhaps because the public associates influenza with a bothersome--but not lethal--seasonal illness.
Influenza, experts say, is a potentially life-threatening illness with distinct symptoms such as very high fever and severe body aches, lasting no less that five days. The generic “flu” typically lasts from two to four days.
Influenza kills about 20,000 people in the U.S. every year. The majority are elderly or have immune system problems. For most people, influenza might simply lead to an unpleasant couple of days off.
But every once in a while, the virus becomes much more dangerous, as it acquires the ability to attack a broader segment of the population.
By deciphering the genetic code of the virus, researchers learned exactly how the deadly change happens. They discovered how easily the virus shuffles around the basic units that make up its DNA. Like chameleons, influenza viruses constantly reinvent themselves.
Every year, the human influenza virus changes a little, just enough to fool our immune system.
“That’s your garden-variety, year-by-year influenza,” Reid said.
Much of the illness and death caused by the different strains can be prevented with a vaccine, which must be created yearly to protect humans from the latest strain’s novel design.
But at some point, the shuffling of DNA is so radical that the virus essentially becomes a total stranger to the human population, escaping recognition by the immune system altogether.
Rendering humans defenseless, the virus kills with a more aggressive form of the disease. As the more aggressive virus spreads, so does the beginning of a possible pandemic.
And if a pandemic were to hit today, scientists know they’d be running against the clock. With thousands of flights shuffling passengers all over the world, it is estimated that a deadly virus would take four days--and not months, as in 1918--to circle the globe.
Aware of the consequences that a pandemic would have in today’s high-tech environment, the World Health Organization and the U.S. government are starting to take preventive measures seriously.
The WHO has established guidelines for responding to a pandemic, as well as a global influenza program that centralizes data on emerging influenza epidemics around the world.
In the United States, the Working Group on Influenza Pandemic Planning Preparedness and Emergency Response--made up of members from the public and private sector--has been working on an action plan since 1993.
But planning at the local level is as important as establishing national guidelines, said Patricia Schwartz, project coordinator for the California Influenza Pandemic Planning Committee.
In California, representatives from several agencies, including the Red Cross and the Office of Emergency Services, recently met to develop a statewide influenza pandemic plan as part of a pilot project funded by the Centers for Disease Control.
One impending problem has been the lack of real numbers to help agencies foresee the consequences of a pandemic at the local level, said Schwartz. State agencies have had to extrapolate from national estimates, a less than accurate way of gauging the real scope of a pandemic, she said.
The estimate for California, for example, is 9 million cases of influenza leading to 396,000 hospitalizations and about 168,000 deaths, she said. But those numbers are very rough, and represent one scenario out of many during a pandemic.
New software will allow states, counties and cities to refine those numbers. The program, created by Dr. Martin Meltzer and colleagues at the Centers for Disease Control, asks for key information from local hospitals and other agencies.
For example, planners must put in numbers from hospital records on how many people have diabetes or chronic respiratory disease, factors known to exacerbate the impact of influenza. Taking those variables into consideration can provide a more realistic figure for the scope of a pandemic, Schwartz said.
The program allows calculation of different levels of severity, such as comparing what would happen if 20% of the population became infected, versus 50%.
“It gives you honest-to-goodness numbers,” said Schwartz.
Another feature is that planners may visualize different scenarios for vaccination. In case of a pandemic, not enough vaccine will be made quickly enough to protect the whole population, experts say, so states and cities will be faced with a tough choice.
Should the most vulnerable citizens--children and the elderly--be vaccinated, which would save more lives? Or should the bulk of the work force be protected, to prevent a major effect on the economy?
Meltzer said the idea is not to plan once and then forget about it. States and cities have to make the plan a living one and revisit it frequently, he said.
“We can’t expect the federal government to do everything. States and local health departments have to have their plan as well,” Meltzer said.
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)
Mutating Into a Mass Killer
Every few decades, an aggressive form of the influenza virus renders humans defenseless, killing millions around the world. Three global epidemics, or pandemics, of influenza have taken place in the 20th century alone. Scientists are beginning to understand how the influenza virus every once in a while turns into a mass killer, and national, state and local agencies are getting ready for the possibility that another influenza pandemic may hit soon. *
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1b95746b66849a625d722b8ba8aea01b | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-dec-23-mn-46775-story.html | 85% of Blue Line Deaths Occur on Fastest Segment | 85% of Blue Line Deaths Occur on Fastest Segment
Nearly 85% of the deaths on the Metro Blue Line occur where the trains run fastest along the deadly light-rail line connecting downtown Los Angeles with Long Beach, an analysis by The Times shows.
The fewest Blue Line accidents--but by far the most deaths--have occurred over the last nine years along a 12-mile segment of the line where trains routinely go through urban neighborhoods and intersections at a legally allowed 55 mph, according to an analysis of Metropolitan Transportation Authority accident statistics.
It was that segment of the line where a Blue Line train traveling at 55 mph Nov. 27 collided with a taxicab that had turned illegally into an intersection, killing all six people in the taxi.
MTA records show that more accidents--but far fewer deaths--occurred on segments of the Blue Line in downtown Los Angeles and Long Beach. In those neighborhoods, trains travel along the center of city streets and compete for road space with cars, trucks and pedestrians, thus requiring reduced speeds of no more than 35 mph.
According to MTA records, which cover the period from July 1990 to September 1999, there were 233 accidents on the Los Angeles segment, where the train runs along Flower Street and Washington Boulevard, often amid the crush of city traffic. There were three deaths during that period.
In contrast, there were fewer than half as many accidents--111--on the faster-running segment, which goes through South-Central Los Angeles, the Watts/Willowbrook area and Compton, but there were 40 deaths.
Four people died on the Long Beach segment in 142 accidents.
The link between speed and the Blue Line’s safety record has long been debated.
Some blame speed as a contributing factor to the deaths. But MTA safety chief Paul Lennon said in a statement Wednesday that operating procedures have been examined by outside experts and “speed has not been identified by them as an issue.”
A comparison of the Blue Line with other cities shows that its trains travel at a rate of speed that is among the fastest in the nation, according to records on file with the Federal Transit Administration. In a survey of 17 of the nation’s light-rail systems, comparing actual rates of speed during 1997, only St. Louis, with an average of 25 mph, was higher than the Blue Line’s 22.7 mph.
Speed of Trains Is Criticized
The California Public Utilities Commission reported in October that more people died in Blue Line accidents during 1998 than on California’s four other light-rail systems combined.
That year, the PUC reported nine deaths on the Blue Line and a total of eight deaths on light-rail systems in San Diego, Sacramento, San Francisco and Santa Clara County.
Critics, neighborhood activists and at least one driver argue that the trains move far too fast for the neighborhoods they traverse.
“The trains come through too fast,” said the Rev. Lowe Barry, spokesman for Ministers Against Metro Rail Accidents, which has organized vigils and demonstrations for accident victims in South-Central Los Angeles and Compton. “A slowing of the trains would save a significant number of fatalities.”
But MTA safety experts contend that the Blue Line’s high rate of deaths and injuries is caused by the often illegal and inexplicable behavior of motorists and pedestrians along the 22-mile line between downtown Los Angeles and Long Beach. MTA officials contend that every fatal accident was caused by motorists or pedestrians ignoring warning signals, gates or traffic lights.
The MTA has been tweaking the system with safety improvements almost from its opening in 1990, hoping to reduce accidents and injuries. Enforcement of traffic laws has been stepped up and MTA officials are now running a demonstration project at one intersection, using four barrier gates instead of the conventional two. The MTA also has waged public information campaigns and experimented with mechanical safety devices, such as altering signals and using different-sounding horns.
MTA executives and outside experts say that the expense of light rail is justified only if it offers a high-speed alternative to cars and buses. That means maintaining speeds of 55 mph for long stretches--trusting that gates and warning signals will do their jobs and keep cars and pedestrians out as the trains pass through.
“We think 55 mph is a reasonable speed, given the intent of the system,” said Paul Lennon, MTA’s safety chief, during an interview after November’s accident.
Lennon calls light rail a “viable alternative” to cars, and wonders how many more motorists would be on freeways, possibly endangering other motorists, “if we weren’t operating at a decent level of speed to make it attractive enough to people to make them leave their cars at home.”
As far as ridership is concerned, the Blue Line is a success story, providing commuters with 59,000 trips a day, because “it gets people where they want to go reasonably quickly,” Lennon said.
Martin Wachs, director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at UC Berkeley, in the past has been a vocal critic of other MTA policies. But, as far as rail safety goes, he echoed what others outside the system say: MTA has been extremely attentive to safety issues, doing such things as retrofitting grade crossings with gates and additional lights. “They’ve done everything to industry standards,” Wachs said.
“Everyone wants people out of cars and to use public transit,” Wachs said. “To slow them down is to weaken their ability to compete with the automobile.”
Wachs, like others, believes the central problem is a behavioral one.
“It is quite mysterious why drivers would drive around gates and ignore the horns of speeding trains,” he said.
But the MTA and its Blue Line have critics, including at least one Blue Line driver, who contend that reducing speed would save lives.
“Everyone wrings their hands and says, ‘Isn’t it a tragedy? This idiot tried to beat the train,’ ” said Thomas A. Rubin, an Oakland-based transportation consultant who once served as controller-treasurer of the old Southern California Rapid Transit Agency, which evolved into the MTA. In that post, Rubin was responsible for risk management, including safety, for the Blue Line.
He agreed that people contribute to the accident toll, but argues that the vagaries of human conduct are a given. “It is a behavior problem, however, it is a behavior problem that is very well understood and should be understood by anyone planning a transit system,” he said.
Accident records kept by the MTA are broken down according to the Blue Line’s three north/south segments--two relatively short, so-called street-running segments in Los Angeles and Long Beach that bookend a longer, 12-mile segment from Washington Boulevard to Willow Street in Long Beach.
The total running time between downtown Long Beach and the 7th Street/Metro station in Los Angeles is about 54 minutes.
Death Still Haunts Driver
In what some see as further evidence of the connection between speed and fatalities, the last 17 accidents that resulted in deaths involved southbound trains.
This is key because a number of the Blue Line stations are what the industry calls “far side” stations, meaning that they are south or on the far side of an intersection. Trains arrive at far side stations across intersections at higher rates of speed than northbound trains, which much stop to take on and release passengers before starting into intersections.
Motorists in intersections or pedestrians running to catch trains appear more likely to get involved in accidents with southbound trains.
The Watts station is one such station, located just south of 103rd Street. Three pedestrians have died at the intersection since 1996.
Since the report was published, six more people died in the taxicab accident, bringing the death toll since 1990 to 53.
None of that comes as news to a former MTA driver who took early retirement after operating a train that struck a pedestrian several years ago.
Agreeing to be interviewed only on the condition that his name not be used, the former train operator said he believes that numerous deaths could have been avoided had the trains been slower.
Tormented by nightmares, the operator said there is no doubt in his mind that the person he ran over would still be alive if he were going slower.
“My life has been changed from day one. It was devastating,” said the former train operator, who is in therapy and said he keeps reliving the accident although it occurred several years ago. In one recurring nightmare, he said he dreams that he sees the pedestrian in front of him and pushes his feet through the floor of the train, hoping to hasten the braking process by dragging his feet along the rocky rail bed.
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)
Fatal Line
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Most of the deaths on the Los Angeles Metro Blue Line occur where the trains run up to 55 mph, the highest speed allowed. Below are the areas where deaths have occurred over the last nine years, and the number in each area.
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Sources: Metropolitan Transportation Authority and Times news archives
Rail Speeds
The speed of Los Angeles light-rail trains has become a controversial issue. Following is a comparison of average speeds reported by cities operating light-rail trains.
Average speed
St. Louis: 25.0
Los Angeles: 22.7
San Diego: 22.1
Sacramento: 18.2
Baltimore: 17.2
Boston: 15.0
Philadelphia: 12.1
San Francisco: 10.2
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4875110a03cc50059802d3fdfc745278 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-dec-24-mn-47046-story.html | N.Y. School Board Votes Out Chancellor | N.Y. School Board Votes Out Chancellor
A bitterly divided New York City Board of Education voted 4 to 3 on Thursday against renewing the contract of Chancellor Rudy Crew, head of the nation’s largest public school system.
Crew’s departure--which is scheduled for June, but could come much earlier--represents a clear victory for Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who supported his ouster.
“Change is good. It gives you another opportunity to reinvent things, to reform things,” the mayor said Thursday.
“I dare say it’s going to be a long day in a very cold hell until we find someone as good” as Crew, countered Irving Hamer, Manhattan’s representative on the board and a backer of the outgoing chancellor.
Once-cordial relations between the mayor and Crew--who in 1995 took over the troubled school system, with its more than 1.1 million students--became frosty earlier this year after the chancellor opposed Giuliani’s call for education vouchers. Crew even threatened to resign his $245,000-a-year post over the issue.
The chancellor, who was spending some vacation time with his own children, was not present when the board cast its vote.
“He preferred to be lynched in absentia,” a spokeswoman said.
In a statement, Crew said it was clear that his earlier coalition of support could not be sustained and that it might be impossible “to restore the solidarity that marked my first three years as chancellor.”
“It is now time for a new leader to build upon our accomplishments and move this school system into the new millennium,” he said.
As expected, Giuliani’s three supporters on the board voted against the 49-year-old educator. The swing vote belonged to Terri Thomson, the representative from Queens.
After the vote, Thomson said that Crew had left behind a “fabulous legacy.”
“But his actions over the course of the last few months have been very troubling to me,” she said, “His indecisiveness about whether he wanted to stay or go, his unwillingness to have a conversation about the future.”
She charged that Crew was defending the bureaucracy “instead of aggressively tackling the problems” with vision.
“I think we need a chancellor who will give us 1,000% right now,” she added. “We need a chancellor with fire in his belly and a passion for change.”
After the vote, some educators speculated that Crew--who had expressed ambivalence about remaining in New York--may have been trying to find a way out. They said that, although he made clear that he wanted a multiyear contract with a raise and increased pension benefits, Crew also made it known that he was weighing at least one other job offer.
Crew was one of the longest-serving heads of the city’s school system. He replaced Ramon Cortines, whom Giuliani forced to resign after personality clashes and disagreements over policy.
Crew--who previously held top public school jobs in Tacoma, Wash., and Sacramento--instituted major changes upon his arrival. He shifted power back from local school boards to the central Board of Education and fired underperforming superintendents and principals.
He ended the practice of social promotion and instituted tough standards for pupils.
At the same time, he faced serious problems.
Talented principals and teachers continued to abandon New York for the suburbs, where they received higher pay and found smaller classes.
In September, a testing firm admitted that it had made a mistake and that 8,600 students who were sent to summer school for remedial work had scored higher and didn’t need to attend.
Then this month, a special schools investigator revealed that dozens of principals and teachers helped students pass standardized tests in order to improve their own performance records.
And a state report found that dozens of schools falsely raised attendance figures in order to receive additional state funds.
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e2c2fdac0cd1f8736a77c298c6148388 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-dec-29-ss-48653-story.html | RIGHT PERSON RIGHT TIME | RIGHT PERSON RIGHT TIME
In these final years of the American Century, the American Dream waded ashore in Italy. In the land of the papacy, of Michelangelo and Galileo and Leonardo Da Vinci, within sight of the canals of Venice and within earshot of the romantic singing gondoliers, a kid hawked his wares to tourists.
Jewelry? Leather? Postcards? Good guesses all.
The kid was selling baseball caps. Chicago Bull baseball caps.
A Chicago bull? To a kid in Italy, a Chicago bull might well be a cousin of the ones the matadors fight in Spain. A Chicago Bull, capital B, that’s Michael Jordan.
Is Jordan the greatest athlete of the century? That’s debatable, if greatness is defined strictly by athletic performance. The Times’ poll ranks Jordan No. 1, but no apologies would be necessary for Muhammad Ali or Babe Ruth, for Pele or Carl Lewis, for Jesse Owens or Jim Thorpe. The Times encouraged voters to define greatness as they saw fit.
If greatness extends beyond the field of play, many say Jordan wins in a landslide. He transcended sport and emerged as arguably the most famous face on the planet, a globally recognized emissary of the dominant culture and economic system in the world today.
“Michael Jordan is in Paris,” the newspaper France-Soir reported breathlessly in 1997. “That’s better than the Pope. It’s God in person.”
Fame and fortune, if not deification, were built upon a foundation of spectacular athletic success. Jordan’s Bulls won six NBA championships within eight years. The two years they didn’t, Jordan was on his baseball sabbatical. Jordan won a record 10 NBA scoring titles and, in each of his six NBA finals appearances, earned the award as most valuable player. His final shot had a mythical quality to it, as he posed to admire the jump shot that slipped one last championship ring onto his finger.
His artistic flair was not only immortalized but commercialized. His “Air Jordan” shoes drove kids into a consumer frenzy usually reserved for passing fads--and cheaper fads--like Pokemon or Tickle Me Elmo. The “Jumpman” silhouette, the logo of the Jordan Brand line of apparel and shoes, was adapted from his globally televised flight in which he took off from the free-throw line and soared airborne, legs apart like scissors, leaning, reaching, dunking, then descending.
If the NBA had Jordan’s shrewd sense of timing, the league would have forever suspended its annual slam-dunk contest the moment Jordan landed. Why ask a kid to follow Sinatra to the microphone?
To describe Jordan as a superstar seemed woefully inadequate. Jordan was blessed with “extraordinary genius,” University of California sports sociologist Harry Edwards said.
“Because of that dimension of the extraordinary, he represents the best and greatest potential of the species--a Gandhi, an Einstein, a Michelangelo,” Edwards said. “If I were charged with introducing an alien life form to the epitome of human potential, creativity, perseverance and spirit, I would introduce that alien life form to Michael Jordan.”
Hyperbole, perhaps, but Gandhi could not back up his genius with Nielsen ratings. When Jordan left for the baseball diamond, the NBA finals lost about 10 million viewers, roughly one-third the American television audience. When Jordan returned to the finals, so did those casual fans.
Jordan’s reach extended far beyond America’s shores. The kid in Italy peddled Bull caps, but so did kids in Israel and Iran, in Asia and Africa and South America. Jordan’s retirement commanded the first three pages of the French national sports daily L’Equipe. “His only rival globally,” David Halberstam wrote, “was England’s Princess Diana.”
American soccer star Alexi Lalas said teammates on his Italian soccer club, playing the most popular sport in the world in perhaps the most competitive league in the world, spoke of Jordan with awe, even those “who couldn’t name three other NBA players and who couldn’t play basketball to save their lives.”
“People around the world like American culture, and Jordan has the whole image--cool and talent,” Lalas said. “Michael Jordan is like rock ‘n’ roll.”
Jordan’s magic can be summarized in six words: right person, right sport, right time.
The Boston Celtics were a dynasty, but before cable TV. The New York Yankees were a dynasty, but before color TV. Ali was a sports hero, but far too controversial for commercial appeal. Pele was a sports hero, but Americans didn’t much care for soccer.
As the NBA rode Magic Johnson and Larry Bird to unprecedented popularity in the 1980s, Commissioner David Stern sold his sport by selling his stars, here and abroad. In basketball, the stars were in your face, up close and personal, not hidden beneath a football helmet or stranded in a baseball outfield.
And, as the Soviet Union collapsed and the Berlin Wall crumbled, the world’s last remaining superpower exported its culture and technology. By radio and television, by cable and satellite, in magazines and in movies, Americans conquered the youth of the world.
Soviet teenagers used to beg, borrow and steal to get their hands on a pair of Levi’s. Today, Americana rules. When Americans travel abroad, few are the places they can go to escape CNN and MTV, Coca-Cola and McDonald’s, Madonna and “Star Wars.”
I once saw the Red Hot Chili Peppers, a fine Los Angeles rock band, in concert in a packed gym in Barcelona. Not a word of Spanish was uttered. Didn’t matter.
It was in Barcelona, in 1992, where Jordan might have clinched the title of greatest athlete in the 1900s. The Olympic Games, the greatest sports festival of all, requested the presence of Jordan and Co., the Dream Team. Never mind the fans. With the mere sight of Jordan, championship athletes in all sports, from all countries, morphed into screaming teeny-boppers hoping for a wink, a touch, maybe even a sock from their idol.
Granted, Stern’s marketing machine would have transformed the best player in the NBA into a global celebrity, whoever he was. The genius of Jordan--and his agent, David Falk--was in marrying capitalism to celebrity, deploying technological wizardry to not only feed the hunger for American culture but develop an appetite where none had existed.
“We’ve gone into countries where they don’t have a clue about what a sports beverage is, but they know Michael,” Gatorade marketing executive Bill Schmidt said last year. “He’s instant validation.”
When Nike was recruiting Jordan in 1984, he did not simply send his agent to talk turkey. Jordan accompanied Falk to visit Nike, stunning company officials by asking who would design his signature shoe. Nike hitched its corporate wagon to Jordan, hiring film director Spike Lee to produce the Air Jordan commercials that humanized him and, at the same time, celebrated his wondrous athletic ability.
Jordan and Falk signed up with McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, Gatorade, Hanes, WorldCom and other major corporations Jordan simply referred to as “my partners.” But the Nike loyalty never wavered, and no wonder.
When Fortune estimated the financial effect of Jordan’s career at $10 billion--ticket sales, merchandise sales, television revenues, endorsement payments and more-- the magazine calculated his economic impact on Nike alone at $5.2 billion. So, as Jordan shifted from pitching someone else’s products to pitching his own, Nike was more than happy to collaborate in his Brand Jordan line of shoes and apparel.
Falk’s success at branding Jordan revolutionized the business of sports representation. Jordan is not merely SI but GQ too; the men’s fashion magazine once saluted him as “the most styish man in America.”
As athletes increasingly view themselves as entertainers, today’s sports prodigy demands his agent not only negotiate a lucrative contract and endorsement deals but extend stardom into fashion, television, movies, music and video games.
A shoe deal is nice, but “Space Jam” is better. And how about a fragrance? Michael Jordan Cologne, with a silhouette of Jordan’s bald head as its logo, offers an “olfactive experience” that features “essences of cypress, rosewood, geranium and cognac.” Not long ago, Jordan would have been laughed out of the locker room, tagged as effeminate.
Rap music star Master P’s fledgling sports agency, whose clients include Heisman Trophy winner Ricky Williams, offers athletes the chance to sing, dance, appear in music videos or just hang out at Hollywood parties. In order to prevent clients from jumping ship, several prominent sports agents have sold their practices and joined forces with entertainment companies--Falk included.
The Jordan lore, told and retold across the country and around the world, embraces the common man even as Jordan’s feats eclipse those of any common man. Jordan was cut from his high school team, so never give up. For all his athletic ability, he couldn’t make the grade in baseball, so no one succeeds at everything. He made champions of the long-suffering Bulls, never begging to escape to the glamour of the Lakers or elsewhere, so give it your best shot and stay loyal. He dismissed teammates as “my supporting cast” and ridiculed Bull General Manager Jerry Krause, but who among us has never belittled co- workers or bosses?
When his father was murdered, Jordan wept. When Jordan retired, he gracefully opened his globally televised news conference by offering condolences to the family of a slain Chicago police officer.
“A lot of times, when athletes are interviewed, people don’t pay attention,” Yankee star Derek Jeter said. “When you’re flipping through channels and you see Michael Jordan, you’ll stop and listen. I don’t think he speaks unless he knows what he’s talking about.”
That quality brings forth objections from activists dismayed by Jordan’s refusal to embrace political and social causes. Fellow sports giants, among them Jim Brown and the late Arthur Ashe, have rebuked Jordan on that score.
Before endorsing Reebok, Women’s World Cup hero Julie Foudy traveled to Pakistan to assure herself the company did not contract with factories using pitifully paid child laborers. Jordan said nothing when a similar controversy surrounded Nike. In a Senate race in his home state of North Carolina, Jordan resolutely declined to endorse Democrat Harvey Gantt, a former Charlotte mayor and black challenger to Republican Jesse Helms.
“Jordan uses his clout to peddle sneakers and star in unwatchable movies with Bugs Bunny, leaving the very distinct impression that he has the social consciousness of a baked potato,” John Schulian wrote in GQ, which selected Ali as its athlete of the century.
Jordan once remarked, half-jokingly, that he passed on Gantt because Republicans bought sneakers too. It was not that Jordan was not smart enough to speak up; it was that he was smart enough not to. Jackie Robinson campaigned for Richard Nixon and later regretted it. Sure, Jordan might alienate his Nike-buying public with a partisan view. But, more important, who appointed him a national conscience when he--like most Americans--did not know or care much about politics?
“The issue of trading with Indonesia without regard to human rights or child labor is fundamentally a matter that United States trade policy must address,” the Rev. Jesse Jackson said. “It isn’t right to shift the burden to him because he’s a high-profile salesman.”
And the concept that Jordan, as a high-profile black man from North Carolina, should have naturally endorsed a black Democrat is an anachronism many political commentators have yet to acknowledge. The “black vote” is no longer monolithic, as America increasingly divides more intractably along lines of class rather than race.
To label Jordan as middle class, of course, is ludicrous. But we ask our sports heroes to be role models, and here Jordan triumphs. The previous generation of black activists never imagined a black man as the foremost corporate spokesman in America. And, to a growing black middle class--and to a younger generation of Americans of all colors--Jordan shared his success story.
Be like Mike? On the basketball court, no one can. But who could not strive to do his job with style and grace, without shaming his family? Who could not strive to excel in his field, to command the respect of his peers and the attention of his community, to do so well that he could not only work for himself but provide jobs for others? In this American Century, Michael Jordan is the American Dream.
*
--Besides personal reporting, sources for this story included the Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Tribune, Fortune, GQ, New Yorker, Salon and “Playing for Keeps: Michael Jordan and the World He Made” by David Halberstam.
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af38642b5b7ecb71382a1b182be40c96 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-feb-01-ca-3733-story.html | HBO Launches Spinoff With Pair of Excellent Kids’ Shows | HBO Launches Spinoff With Pair of Excellent Kids’ Shows
If HBO’s sneak peek Tuesday night at its two new kids’ shows is any indication, the network’s spinoff of a 24-hour HBO Family channel--officially launched today--is going to give tried-and-true PBS and Nickelodeon some real competition.
Both series--"A Little Curious,” for preschoolers, and “Crashbox,” for grade-school kids--are solidly educational and dynamite entertainment to boot. If one has an edge, though, it’s “Crashbox,” set for Mondays at 4 p.m.
Waggishly promoting logical thinking, this visual blast of a show takes viewers inside a machine whose gothic innards are made of metallic junk--wires, nuts and bolts, gears and levers--where offbeat little patchwork robots access smart and creative games.
A sampling: In “Skeleton Crew,” a surly skeleton pirate uses his own bones to lay out math problems on his ship’s deck. “KBOX Radio Scramble,” hosted by a robot disc jockey, scrambles words (“chahadee"--"headache”) for kids to figure out; clues are found in songs and announcements.
“Poop or Scoop,” a video clip carnival game, has a sideshow barker trying to trip up viewers with animal facts or falsities. Viewers decide whether the info is just “poop” or “the real scoop.”
“Word Shake,” looking like an early talkie movie, has a French chef who stirs up nonsense phrases in his pot--"disturb honey” becomes “The Easter Bunny”; a mystery guest at “Haunted House Party” must be identified; in the first episode it’s a historical figure.
Vocabulary game “Revolting Slob” features a truly disgusting bodysuit puppet in his abode. Tonight, Slob slobbers over his rotten baked beans, and an announcer asks if he is salivating, saluting or salvaging? Are his beans ransacked, rampant or rancid?
The pacing allows viewers time to think, and a review of correct answers follows each game, and repeats at the end.
“A Little Curious,” which is set to run Mondays at 7:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m., helps preschoolers explore basic learning concepts. It features a creative blend of film clips, music and computer, traditional and stop-motion animation and an unusual cast of characters: Plush, a toy dog; Little Cup; Bob the Ball; Doris the Door; Pad and Pencil; String; and the Shoe Family--mom- and dad-type shoes, and sneakers and Mary Janes.
Tonight’s preview episode puts the spotlight on “Loud, Soft, and Shake.” The shoes do the Hokeypokey (“Shake yourself about”), Plush shakes an apple tree and gets more than he bargains for, and Little Cup makes a milkshake.
The Shoes tiptoe softly and do a soft shoe; tap dancers tap loudly; Doris the Door opens to show a loud electric drill and a roaring airplane taking off; and real kids have a feathery pillow fight.
Then Doris proves she’s an “old softy,” reminiscing about being a young door in the ‘40s--her animated image becomes part of a cheerful black-and-white film.
While there is a lot going on, the rhythm isn’t frenetic and the tone is gentle. Music, too, is an outstanding component, starting with the theme song sung by the Manhattan Transfer.
* “A Little Curious” can be seen on Mondays at 7:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. on HBO Family. The network has rated it TV-Y (suitable for very young children). “Crashbox” is shown on HBO Family on Mondays at 4 p.m. The network has rated it TV-Y7 (suitable for children age 7 and older). The cable network will feature a special preview of both shows on HBO Tuesday night, “Curious” at 7 p.m. and “Crashbox” at 7:30 p.m.
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b25d9f719e78988c23ed76cbd5f3f1f9 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-feb-01-mn-3716-story.html | Leonard Lewin; Author of Satire on Dangers of Peace | Leonard Lewin; Author of Satire on Dangers of Peace
Leonard C. Lewin, who penned a brilliant satire purporting to be a government study on the dangers of peace titled “Report From Iron Mountain,” has died. He was 82.
Lewin died Thursday in New Haven, Conn.
The book, published in 1967 at the height of the Vietnam War, was commissioned by the editor of the humor magazine Monocle after a fall in the stock market was blamed on a “peace scare.” Lewin, an editor and writer of considerable talent, wrote what appeared to be a suppressed secret government study by a prominent Midwestern professor identified only as “John Doe.”
According to the introduction, written by and credited to Lewin, Doe and more than a dozen other scholars had been part of a top-secret “study group” that had gathered in a mammoth underground bomb shelter in upstate New York in 1963. Lewin wrote that the group worked for more than two years “to determine, accurately and realistically, the nature of the problems that would confront the United States if and when a condition of ‘permanent peace’ should arrive, and to draft a program for dealing with this contingency.”
The 109-page report concluded that if peace “could be achieved, it would almost certainly not be in the best interests of society to achieve it.”
“War fills certain functions essential to the stability of our society,” such as full employment, the report said.
Written in bureaucratic jargon, the report suggested that in a search for new crises, the government might introduce massive environmental pollution. In a move to control population, birth control drugs could be added to the food and water supply. “Aggressive impulses” from those used in combat might be controlled through blood sports.
The book became a bestseller. Esquire magazine published a condensation in its December 1967 issue that ran more than 25,000 words. The book’s publisher, Dial Press, tongue firmly in cheek, continued to cite the book’s authenticity.
Sales were brisk and the book was translated into more than a dozen languages. But by 1972, Lewin had had enough of the hoax. He confessed to being the author in an essay in The New York Times Book Review.
In the essay, Lewin said he had decided to end the mystery over the authorship after reading the “Pentagon Papers,” and other documents about the Vietnam War and deciding that some of the information being leaked “read like parodies of ‘Iron Mountain,’ rather than the reverse.”
He said his original intent has been to discuss “the issues of war and peace,” in an interesting way and “extend the scope of public discussion of ‘peace planning’ beyond its usual stodgy limits.”
The furor eventually faded, and the book went out of print in the late 1970s. But in the mid-1980s, Lewin received a request from a group of white supremacists asking whether he had any copies to sell. He said no.
By the early 1990s, the book had become something of a right-wing manifesto, and ads for it began showing up in journals popular with rightist militias. According to the Wall Street Journal, Lewin found a copy of the new edition of “Iron Mountain” in which his acknowledgment of authorship appeared in a blurb on the back accompanied by: “Does editor Leonard Lewin’s claim of authorship represent the truth? Or was it just another move in the deception game. . . . ?”
Lewin sued Liberty Lobby, the publisher of this edition. When the case was settled, Lewin ended up with 1,000 copies of “Iron Mountain” in storage.
Over the last few years, copies of other unauthorized editions continued to be available on the Internet, and many militia members still believe that it’s a suppressed government report.
Victor Navasky, editor of The Nation and the former Monocle editor who had commissioned “Iron Mountain,” wrote years ago that “the report was a success in that it achieved its mission, which . . . was to provoke thinking about the unthinkable--the conversion to a peacetime economy and the absurdity of the arms race. But it was a failure, given that even with the end of the cold war we still have a cold war economy.”
Lewin, a liberal who campaigned for Eugene McCarthy in 1968, was born in New York City in 1916. In the early ‘40s, after his graduation from Harvard University with a degree in psychology, he became a union organizer in Hartford, Conn., with the United Electrical Workers. He later worked with his father at a sugar refinery in Indiana before moving back to New York in 1960 to pursue his writing career.
He edited “A Treasury of American Political Humor,” published by Delacorte in 1964, and he contributed to various publications.
He is survived by his daughter, Julie Lewin of Connecticut, son Michael Lewin, who lives in England, and by longtime companion Lorraine Davis of New York City.
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b66821ca0148eb7b3a399a35129cfd22 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-feb-03-fi-4374-story.html | Success Was Right at His Fingertips | Success Was Right at His Fingertips
George Schaeffer didn’t know fake fingernails from real ones when he bought a dental supply company back in 1981. But he soon discovered that the acrylic material used to make dentures was a big seller with manicurists.
“They were buying hordes of it. They didn’t have the right products to make those acrylic nails--it was a very primitive industry--so they were coming to us.”
Sensing a business opportunity, Schaeffer hired a chemist, tinkered with his dental formula and within months was delivering packages of acrylic powder, liquid and primer to beauty salons throughout Los Angeles. Manicurists called it “the rubber-band special” because the ingredients and instruction sheet for making acrylic nails came wrapped in elastic.
From those rudimentary beginnings, Schaeffer has fashioned a nail-care business called OPI that posted more than $50 million in sales last year. That makes his North Hollywood company the biggest independent nail products manufacturer.
The growth of OPI from an obscure dental products firm (Schaeffer never bothered to change the name, which stands for Odontorium Products Inc.) to a nail-care company with 135 products mirrors the explosion in the nail industry nationwide.
Until the 1980s, manicures were widely considered a luxury and the manicurist herself was often relegated to a tiny counter inside a beauty salon, as epitomized by Madge, television’s pink-smocked manicurist.
No longer.
“Just like you get your hair cut every six weeks, you now get your nails done every 10 days. It’s become part of the ‘power’ look for women and an essential part of personal grooming,” says Vi Nelson, a spokeswoman for the Nail Manufacturers Council, a trade group in Chicago that is part of the larger American Beauty Assn.
Statistics tell the story. From 1991 to 1997, the number of nail salons in America nearly doubled from 26,752 to 45,163, says Nelson. During that same period, the number of licensed nail technicians exploded from 141,394 to 239,652. Today, nail care is a $6.5-billion industry, and that means big opportunity.
OPI’s biggest competitor, Vista, Calif.-based Creative Nail Design Inc. which was purchased three years ago by a unit of Revlon Inc., also came out of a dental products background. Both sell exclusively to salons via distributors. Firms such as Hard Candy and Urban Decay, by contrast, are strictly retail.
What the American nail-care industry shares, however, is a hub in Southern California. In addition to Creative Nail and OPI, there is Super Nail in Industry, Amoresse in Riverside, Jessica (located across the street from OPI), Orly in Chatsworth, Star Nail in Valencia, Hard Candy in Beverly Hills, Urban Decay in Costa Mesa and others. Indeed, even the industry’s two trade publications are based here: Nailpro in Van Nuys and Nails in Torrance.
*
Industry experts say that’s not surprising, because nails are part of the larger glamour industry so integral to Hollywood. OPI’s nail lacquers have been featured on TV shows such as the hip “Friends” and the movie “Boys on the Side” starring Drew Barrymore. Actor Ted Danson has promoted OPI products. And Schaeffer makes sure that a small cadre of nail technicians who do the nails of celebrities and actors are familiar with his products.
“There’s a certain amount of product placement,” says Kathy Kirkland, the executive editor of Nailpro.
But Kirkland adds that OPI wouldn’t succeed without a good product line. The firm is known industrywide for quality, a sophisticated training program and the larger-than-life persona of Schaeffer himself, who beats the OPI drum at every industry trade show.
“Nail technicians are a very tight group. They network like crazy and read all the trade publications. Everyone knows everyone,” says Kirkland.
A visit to the nearly 200,000-square-foot OPI complex, which sprawls across eight buildings in an industrial area, reveals a lot about its founder, an immigrant whose family fled Hungary in 1956 during the unsuccessful uprising against Communist domination.
He contributes heavily to charity--about $400,000 a year--and has proclamations from various civic and religious groups on his walls to prove it. An avowed patriot, he flies the American flag at his headquarters. Each doorway in the building is hung with a mezuzah, the Jewish talisman of blessing and luck.
Then there is the cafeteria, lined with 14 microwaves so the 225 employees at his headquarters don’t have to wait to heat up their lunches. (OPI has 50 more employees at facilities in West Palm Beach, Fla.; Chicago; Northern California; New Jersey; and a newly opened office in Guatemala.)
OPI’s four-employee laboratory, where new products are developed and tested, is staffed by scientists, including two with PhDs. One perk of working here is free manicures--the lab techs are constantly looking for guinea pigs on which to test new shades of nail polish, nail tips, odorless acrylics, lip liners and cuticle creams.
And 51-year-old Schaeffer is the biggest lab rat.
“I try everything,” he says. “I have to know if it works. For a month I wore lipstick. People thought I was weird, but I learned all about the taste and smell of women’s lipstick.”
In a way, Schaeffer’s immersion in the fashionable world of beauty-care products is a return to his origins. Soon after arriving in New York in 1956, Schaeffer’s parents bought three sewing machines and started to work in the rag business. By the time he reached his teens, the family business had 200 employees engaged in the manufacturing of low-end junior sportswear, a market segment Schaeffer calls “absolutely cutthroat.”
It was here that Schaeffer learned about costing, accounting, inventory and sales, skills he says have served him well with OPI. Schaeffer worked days and attended school at night, earning a bachelor’s degree in economics from City College of New York.
In 1981, as cheap imports began to flood the garment industry, he moved to Los Angeles with his young family and bought Davis Dental Supply Co. because he saw little future for himself in the family business.
Soon, manicurists were deluging him with requests. Then came a visit from health authorities who told him that dental acrylic was unsafe for nail use. It turned out that the same bonding used to hold dentures in place was so strong that women risked having their natural nails torn off if the long acrylic nails attached to them were to catch on something.
Within months, Schaeffer, who says he had no idea of the dangers, had found a chemist in a dental lab who had a side hobby creating movie make-up. Schaeffer offered him a 10% stake in the company to concoct a safer alternative for acrylic nails, then peddled the product door-to-door at salons.
*
The company boomed. In 1983, he added nail tips, and in 1984, polish in patented bottles with a weighted cap for more accurate application. (OPI holds 11 patents, more than double that of his nearest competitor.)
Three years ago Schaeffer rolled out a line of lipsticks and also his youth-oriented polish with wilder colors.
OPI also takes advantage of the fact that men now purchase 5% to 10% of all nail-care services. Nail Envy, a strengthener, and Matte Coat, a low-gloss finishing product, are popular with men who want groomed manicured hands without shiny nails.
Today, nail tips and acrylics account for 30% of OPI’s business, with the balance from polishes, creams and other salon retail products.
Meanwhile, OPI keeps expanding. Schaeffer is in escrow to buy two adjacent buildings and has his eye on a third. He sees potential growth in men’s products, spa treatment and pedicures--OPI is developing a line of products for the feet.
But with the domestic market tapping out, OPI is also looking abroad. Ninety percent of its sales are still in the U.S., with the balance coming mainly from Europe. But the Guatemala office is anticipating growing sales in South America.
And Schaeffer foresees expansion in Asia, especially Japan. “They’re really into lacquers,” he muses. “We could be huge.”
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)
Manicure Mania
Americans spend more on caring for their nails than they do on either movie tickets or lattes. Companies such as North Hollywood-based OPI are cashing in on the nation’s love affair with polished digits. How the nail industry’s receipts compare with U.S. sales of other leisure essentials:
Specialty coffee: $3.0 billion
Movie tickets: $6.4 billion
Nail care: $6.5 billion
Greeting cards: $7.5 billion
Pet accessories: $10 billion
Athletic shoes: $14.7 billion
*
Sources: Athletic Footwear Assn., Greeting Card Assn., Motion Picture Assn. of America, wire reports
Researched by JENNIFER OLDHAM / Los Angeles Times
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176bc17b358f68a8502ade470b41d4d0 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-feb-04-mn-4882-story.html | Gay’s Slaying Alters Attitudes in College Town | Gay’s Slaying Alters Attitudes in College Town
If it is possible for one horrible incident to raise the consciousness of an entire community, it seems to have happened in this sleepy college town. In ways that no one could have predicted before the death of Matthew Shepard in October, town residents, students and faculty at Colorado State University are confronting their notions about tolerance and about college traditions.
The latest act of healing came last week, when the college formally welcomed a chapter of Delta Lambda Phi, the first gay fraternity in Colorado. Many here say that since the death of Shepard, a University of Wyoming student who was attacked in part because he was gay, Fort Collins has undergone significant soul searching.
“Definitely there is a heightened awareness,” said Lisa Phelps, director of the campus’ Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgendered Student Services office. “The conversations I’ve heard on campus are amazing. Whether that leads to tolerance or acceptance, I don’t know if I can make that kind of correlation.”
That awareness emboldened Ethan Cordova to organize the fraternity, one of 19 chapters nationwide. The atmosphere was much different a year ago, he said, when his campaign to start the group led to death threats and a dead rat left at the door of his dorm room.
“It’s totally different now,” he said. “The faculty and the Greek community on campus have been very supportive.”
Shepard’s death at Poudre Valley Hospital, about 60 miles from Laramie, Wyo., resonated here: Shepard was also a college student. The closest gay bar to Laramie is in Fort Collins, where Shepard had many friends.
To the rest of the country, Colorado State is remembered for an ugly incident during homecoming weekend, while the 21-year-old Shepard still lay in a coma. The homecoming parade, with a “Wizard of Oz” theme, featured a float sponsored by a campus fraternity and sorority. On it, a scarecrow had been spray-painted with a vulgarity and “I’m Gay” on its face. Shepard was found tied to a fence in a position resembling a scarecrow.
The effrontery of the float was immediately decried by many people on campus, who were also mortified that the school had been branded as homophobic. As the moral compass of this town of 110,000, the university felt obligated to act. The fraternity, Pi Kappa Alpha, and sorority, Alpha Chi Omega, lost their charters. The school moved to educate by sponsoring seminars and sensitivity training.
Mark Koepsell, Colorado State’s director for Greek life, said the transformation among the 2,000 members of fraternities and sororities has been palpable.
“What happened with Matthew Shepard made these students think about things they haven’t had to,” he said. “They have opened their eyes. There are gays in fraternities, I know it. They accept it now. I’m proud of them.”
While change was afoot in the university’s rarefied air, the town of Fort Collins was still organizing its thoughts. In November, the townspeople voted to not extend an anti-discrimination ordinance to include homosexuals. (In Wyoming, a move to pass hate crimes legislation was scuttled Wednesday by a legislative committee.)
“Wide streets, narrow minds,” said Jerry Bigner, a Colorado State instructor who is Delta Lambda Phi’s faculty advisor. He said Cordova’s story of harassment brought back a flood of memories from his own experience as a closeted gay man at a University of Georgia fraternity.
The five members of the new fraternity nervously introduced themselves to a group of about 30 students on a recent evening. Cordova, whose father renounced him when he learned of his son’s sexual orientation, was so nervous about his brief speech that he was sick.
“This is so important to us, this night,” said Cordova, 21, a social work major from Pueblo, Colo. “I’m really nervous, but I’m so much stronger now than I was a year ago. Things are so different, and I am too.”
The new fraternity, called a colony, will undergo an 18-month probation. Peter Colohan, a vice president at the national office of Delta Lambda Phi in Washington, said the fraternity can expand after this first “class.” “We see ourselves as traditional fraternities,” Colohan said of the group, which was founded in 1986 and has chapters at UCLA, Penn State, Purdue and other schools.
For the men of Delta Lambda Phi, this fraternity is a chance to redefine the experience. “We can make it whatever we want to,” said member Tim Daugherty. “I’d like to be in an environment where men could talk about issues like ethics and philosophy and Socrates and not have a beer can thrown at your head.”
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579346e06afc55ade3bd6ac6e7f283ed | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-feb-06-me-5476-story.html | Pasadena Rail Line | Pasadena Rail Line
* Re “Bus Riders Union Calls Pasadena Rail Line ‘Racist,’ ” Jan. 29: Eric Mann of the Bus Riders Union says the Pasadena light rail is “racist”? The Pasadena Blue Line corridor is 66% minority, and it’s this corridor’s residents who wanted the quality and speed of light-rail service enough to get their own agency to build it.
Light rail racist? The Long Beach Blue Line corridor, the most successful light rail line in the country at over 50,000 riders per day, is 90% minority. And why is L.A. Mayor Richard Riordan proposing busways modeled after a poor Third World city, when only light rail can provide the capacity our traffic congestion requires and the comfort our world-class city deserves?
DARRELL CLARKE
Santa Monica
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How could the construction of a rail line that services the heavily ethnic communities of Chinatown, Lincoln Heights, Cypress Park and Highland Park be considered racist? As a person of color, I am offended by such an accusation. What Mann seems to really be saying is that lower-income, working-class communities should not share the benefits of modern, efficient and environmentally considerate urban transportation technology.
MATT MARCHAND
Highland Park
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Riordan and Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky have exploited the Bus Riders Union, Latinos and all L.A. residents through their manipulation of transportation funding. Yaroslavsky’s 1998 Prop. A, which won, prohibits the construction of any new subway projects, such as segments to the Eastside and Mid-City areas. However, since “segment 3" to the San Fernando Valley is already started, it will be completed as planned, with the mayor’s and Yaroslavsky’s backing. Therefore, the San Fernando Valley can go on to “segment 4,” which is using the Burbank-Chandler line for light rail or, as this article clearly demonstrates, a high-speed busway. This concept has failed miserably, with the Harbor transit way. In addition, express bus service does not bring in the revenue that local service does; the poor inner-city riders subsidize the wealthy express riders.
I have nothing against the San Fernando Valley getting its fair share; however, I am very angry at how the mayor has done this on the backs of the Latino community. He has killed the subway project to the Eastside, a long-time area that has used public transportation. There are vacant lots in the Eastside, reminders of broken promises, and still the mayor proposed that the Valley get its high-speed busway first.
Lastly, what gives Mann the right to speak for the Latino community? What gives him or anybody that right who is not voted into that position?
SANTIAGO ROJAS
Alhambra
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1fdfd491733e22a685f8c9b4018cde5b | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-feb-09-mn-6397-story.html | Hong Kong-Beijing Dispute Deepens | Hong Kong-Beijing Dispute Deepens
Setting the stage for a constitutional crisis that will test the limits of Hong Kong’s judicial independence, a senior Chinese Cabinet official Monday attacked a ruling by the territory’s highest court granting the right of abode to thousands of mainland-born children whose parents live in Hong Kong.
“The decision of the Hong Kong court was a mistake and against the Basic Law,” Zhao Qizheng, director of the State Council Information Office, told reporters attending a reception in Beijing. Zhao said the ruling last month by Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal “should be changed.”
The Basic Law is the mini-constitution that has governed Hong Kong since Britain returned it to Chinese rule in 1997. The Cabinet official also said the government supported criticism of the ruling, reported in the official Chinese press, by four mainland legal experts who participated in the drafting of the Basic Law.
The legal debate centers on who has the right to interpret the Basic Law--the Hong Kong courts or the National People’s Congress, which is China’s parliament.
Hong Kong’s Democratic Party leader, Martin Lee, an outspoken critic of Beijing, quickly expressed his alarm over the statements.
“This is potentially the worst news to come out since the British and the Chinese first sat down to discuss the return of Hong Kong,” said Lee. “The worst-case scenario now is for the standing committee of the National People’s Congress to reinterpret the Basic Law and effectively overturn this ruling. If that happens, then there goes the rule of law in Hong Kong. This is not a time bomb, it is the atomic bomb.”
At the center of the disagreement, the most serious since Hong Kong reverted to Chinese control, is a ruling last month by the Court of Final Appeals that a child born in mainland China, but whose father or mother is a permanent resident of Hong Kong, enjoys the right to live in Hong Kong.
A Hong Kong government survey indicated that 320,000 people, mostly illegitimate children of Hong Kong fathers who keep mistresses on the mainland, fall into this category.
However, since most of these mainland-born offspring are also of childbearing age, the number of potential immigrants because of the ruling, according to some estimates, could surpass 500,000--or about 8% of Hong Kong’s current population. Such an influx would test the territory’s ability to absorb them.
Hong Kong government officials, including Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa, oppose opening Hong Kong to this flood of new immigrants. In a radio interview after the ruling, Tung said it would have “far-reaching and adverse” effects on Hong Kong.
Mainland authorities, concerned that the new wave of immigration could disrupt Hong Kong’s economy, have also opposed allowing the mainland-born offspring to enter Hong Kong. The territory’s provisional legislature, installed by Beijing after the July 1, 1997, hand-over, introduced legislation that restricted these people’s right of abode in Hong Kong.
But the Court of Final Appeal, sitting in a five-judge panel under Chief Justice Andrew Li Kwok-nang, Hong Kong’s highest-ranking jurist, ruled that the postcolonial constitution clearly grants them the right of abode.
Although Hong Kong government officials grumbled about the implications of the ruling for the territory’s infrastructure, the big question was always how Beijing would react.
Hints that Beijing was upset by the ruling first came late Saturday when the official New China News Agency quoted a panel of mainland legal experts as saying that the ruling violated the Basic Law and was an attempt to turn Hong Kong into an independent political entity.
One of the mainland experts, Beijing University professor Xiao Weiyun, said the ruling was “in direct opposition to the interest of Hong Kong residents and has hindered efforts to maintain stability and prosperity.”
The Court of Final Appeal ruling was clearly an attempt by the Hong Kong court to establish itself as the final arbiter of constitutional questions. However, Xiao said that task rests with the National People’s Congress.
“No organization or department can challenge National People’s Congress legislation and decisions,” he said.
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784fe8e698ce400a3d0365fb0beb2cbb | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-feb-10-mn-6763-story.html | Jordan Finally Embraces Light of King’s Life | Jordan Finally Embraces Light of King’s Life
The newly widowed queen of Jordan threw open the doors of Zahran Palace on Tuesday to accept the outstretched hands and tearful embraces of thousands of women who lined up to share their common grief.
Queen Noor al Hussein--"Light of Hussein"--had just lost her husband, the king of Jordan, yet it was she who consoled the women who came calling.
“We rejoice in his life,” she said to one visitor. “His spirit makes us strong.”
King Hussein died Sunday, losing a battle with lymphatic cancer and leaving behind an American-born widow who must now redefine her role. The monarch was buried Monday at the Hashemite royal cemetery in an elaborate state funeral that Noor could not attend because of Muslim tradition that orders the segregation of the sexes during important religious rites.
Instead, Noor, who was Hussein’s fourth wife, and other female members of the royal family will receive female mourners for two more days. On Tuesday, she stood composed, graceful and solicitous as, one by one, she greeted the flood of women from Bedouin villages, Amman mansions and foreign capitals.
Wearing a white chiffon scarf and bereft of makeup, in accord with Muslim tradition of mourning here, she patted elderly peasants on the head and kissed fur-clad socialites. She uttered words of encouragement to every woman who passed by.
It was a display of dignity and strength that earned her plaudits from many Jordanians and underlined a position of newfound honor for a queen who has more often been the target of spiteful criticism. Suddenly, as they cope with the trauma of losing a ruler whom many revered, Jordanians are embracing their tall, blond queen as never before.
“She is a piece of our lost king,” said Fardos Nasri, a writer in dark sunglasses who offered condolences at the palace. “She had his love and is the mother of his children. People respect her. She was very close to him at the end.”
But even if that perception changes over time, as the immediate, emotional impact of Hussein’s death fades, Noor’s status in Jordan appears secure.
In one of his final acts, the king himself ensured that by asking his eldest son and heir, Abdullah, to name Abdullah’s half brother Hamzeh as Jordan’s new crown prince. Hours after his ascension, King Abdullah II did just that.
Hamzeh, 18, is Noor’s eldest son, and she clearly has been grooming him for regal greatness. He is said to have been Hussein’s favorite son. Many Jordanians believe that Hamzeh, as a result of Noor’s considerable influence, would have been chosen instead of Abdullah were it not for his age.
Her starring role in what was portrayed as palace intrigue and a bitter power play in the weeks before Hussein’s death could again tarnish her image. She has told friends that the portrayal was inaccurate and unfair. In a remarkable, final letter to settle the succession question, Hussein defended her against idle gossip and “slander,” saying jealous “parasites” were out to get her.
Noor will retain the title of queen and is expected to continue to maintain a home in Jordan. Abdullah’s Palestinian wife, Rania, remains princess unless Abdullah names her queen.
Abdullah is the son of Hussein’s second wife, the British-born Princess Muna. Muna, whom Hussein divorced 28 years ago, made a rare public appearance Tuesday by standing in line with Noor and the other female family mourners. Tuesday was the 22nd anniversary of the helicopter-crash death of Hussein’s third wife, the Palestinian Alia. First wife Dina, whose marriage to Hussein also ended in divorce, now is married to a prominent Palestinian legislator in the West Bank city of Bethlehem.
Now 47, Queen Noor was born Lisa Halaby to a prominent Arab American family and raised in Washington, D.C. A Princeton-trained architect, she married the king in 1978, converting to Islam and receiving her new name from her new husband.
Associates describe her as a perfectionist with a quick laugh and casual manner. She heads several foundations, including one that promotes handicrafts made by women, and has a Web site.
She has attempted to serve as an informal lobbyist for Jordan before American audiences, appearing on talk shows and pitching Jordan’s positions to U.S. Congress members, especially when Amman supported Iraq in the Persian Gulf War.
But she was never fully accepted by a large segment of Jordan. Elitists saw her as an outsider. Common folk noted that she barely spoke Arabic and spent a great deal of time jet-setting around the world.
During the last few months, as Hussein battled the cancer that ultimately claimed his life, Jordanians were aware of Noor’s evident devotion to her husband. She spent long hours with him at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota.
Making their final trip home to Jordan last week, the queen followed her husband’s usual custom on the royal jet. As he lay unconscious, she greeted all those on board. Then, maintaining her own composure, she invited each person to enter the king’s sickroom to pay respects.
“She was like a pillar,” Marwan Muasher, Jordan’s ambassador to the U.S. who accompanied the entourage, said in an interview Tuesday.
Noor slept in a side room of the Royal Suite at King Hussein Medical Center during the final 48 hours, as the monarch lay dying and family members gathered at his bedside. She left him only briefly on Saturday when she waded into the crowds of Jordanians who maintained a vigil outside the hospital. Stepping into a cold rain, her head covered by a white scarf, she clasped hands and inclined her head in an Arab gesture of gratitude to those who swarmed around her.
After Hussein died on Sunday, the queen kept vigil in the room at Bab al Salam Palace where his body lay, the Jordan Times reported. She slept in the room alongside his body on Sunday night, then on Monday washed his face before his sons arrived to prepare the body and take it off to be buried.
Not until Tuesday morning could she visit the grave site, where she and Princess Rania reportedly prayed and wept.
For the rest of Tuesday, Noor spent the hours of formal mourning alongside all the women of the royal family--sisters, daughters, in-laws, aunts and others related to Hussein. All were dressed in black, even the 12-year-old daughter of Noor and Hussein.
No men are allowed in this ritual. For an identical three-day period, King Abdullah, his brothers and other male royals are receiving condolences from the nation’s men at a separate palace.
Before Hussein died, Noor spoke openly about his disease and the relationship they had.
“I fail miserably every time I try to find words to describe what he is for me,” she told Life magazine in editions that appeared this month. “I think I am a much better person for having known and loved him.”
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f2f1123d3d477202d1d27b073913a0c1 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-feb-11-fi-7006-story.html | Taco Bell Settles Suit With Hindu Over Meal Order | Taco Bell Settles Suit With Hindu Over Meal Order
Yo quiero bean burrito. Not beef burrito.
Taco Bell has paid a confidential sum to settle a lawsuit by a devout Hindu who sued the fast-food chain for serving him a beef burrito rather than the bean one he ordered.
The company settled the suit filed by Mukesh K. Rai, 33, of Carpinteria as the case approached trial in Ventura County Superior Court last month.
Rai said that biting into the beef burrito and chewing the meat violated his religious scruples. The “trauma” caused him to seek advice from his spiritual guru in Britain and eventually to journey to India to purify himself by bathing in the holy waters of the Ganges River.
Rai had filed suit after Taco Bell refused to give him a refund or apologize for the April 1997 incident. He was seeking as much as $144,000 for his expenses and damages.
“The principles to me are far more important than the actual settlement,” Rai said Wednesday. “But Taco Bell has trivialized the importance of this suit. They still haven’t shown any remorse whatsoever.”
Taco Bell’s attorney did not return a call seeking comment.
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6a698d6466a10d7e04d0f635c8e22f29 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-feb-16-mn-8503-story.html | Expect No Light Verse From San Francisco’s Poet | Expect No Light Verse From San Francisco’s Poet
Let us feed the pigeons
at the City Hall
urging them to do their duty
in the Mayor’s office.
--Lawrence Ferlinghetti, from his poem “Junkman’s Obbligato,” 1958.
****
As a rule, Lawrence Ferlinghetti disdains government and avoids contact with officialdom.
But after a lifetime of thumbing his nose (poetically speaking) at respectability and authority, the Beat Generation poet-painter-publisher finally got an offer last year he could not refuse.
“I was walking along North Beach in my dirty painter’s clothes,” Ferlinghetti, 79, said, “and when I got near a fancy restaurant, a long limousine stopped. [Mayor] Willie Brown--I didn’t even think he knew me--jumped out and said, ‘I want you to be my poet laureate.’ How could I say no?”
His has not proved a poet laureateship geared to delivering celebratory verse on official occasions, like the British poet laureates.
After consulting Plato’s “Republic” on the role of the poet as gadfly, Ferlinghetti decided to put his own spin on the post, which carries a stipend of $5,000 for a year’s unspecified labors.
“I see being poet laureate as a great bully pulpit,” Ferlinghetti said. “It’s a chance to say the kind of things that people say all the time but never get into the newspapers.”
With that in mind, Ferlinghetti hit the ground ranting--albeit in his distinctively mild-mannered voice--and he has yet to stop. Think of it as a kind of cultural victory lap for a charter member of the poetic rebellion that withstood scorn and attack and prevailed in changing American letters forever.
An Authentic, Pioneering Radical
Ferlinghetti’s book “A Coney Island of the Mind” remains one of America’s most enduring and biggest-selling volumes of poetry, at a million copies and rising.
Ferlinghetti is a survivor from the long-ago days before cultural radicalism was housebroken, merchandised and allowed to compete for government fellowships, tenure and big-money contracts from the entertainment industry.
He published Allen Ginsberg’s angry, X-rated poetry when other publishers were afraid, and was the center of a landmark 1st Amendment court case. He has been investigated, prosecuted and jailed for putting his political beliefs into action.
For more than four decades, his bookstore, City Lights Books, wedged in a funky corner of the traditionally bohemian neighborhood of North Beach, has been a beacon of avant-garde literature and left-wing political thought in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Ferlinghetti’s preferred persona is that of an “anarchist among the floorwalkers.”
His favorite autobiographical poem is “Director of Alienation” with its self-mocking lament:
Always the Outsider
What a drag
Why don’t you get with it?
It’s your country
What a cliche this Outsider
a real bore . . .
Indeed, Ferlinghetti has refused to rein in his politics or his poetry to fit current fashion. America may be agog these days with risk-free patriotism and the romance of big business, but Ferlinghetti is unreconstructed, telling anyone who will listen that the U.S. bombing of Iraq is immoral and that the American soul is being rotted by the modern corporation.
And so it was no surprise that in his maiden speech at the city’s new main library, with Mayor Brown sitting serenely nearby, poet laureate Ferlinghetti said San Francisco is headed pell-mell for urban hell, squeezing out working-class ethnics and immigrants and becoming an enclave for the rich and privileged.
He railed about chain stores (“chain gangs”), automobile traffic choking city streets (“stop Autogeddon from happening here”) and poets being marginalized into “poetry ghettos.”
He said his beloved North Beach is becoming a “theme park overrun by tourists [where] kitsch is king.” He took a whack at the new library--decrying the abandonment of the old library and calling the city’s budget for book acquisition appallingly chintzy.
And he lashed the Brown administration’s annual invitation to the Navy’s precision flying team, the Blue Angels. “Killing machines,” Ferlinghetti harrumphed.
A Unique Job in a Unique City
If there is another big city where the mayor would be willing to hear such public grousing from an appointee--can you imagine, for example, the reaction from the thin-skinned mayor of New York?--its name does not come to mind. In fact, though the Library of Congress names a U.S. poet laureate each year, San Francisco is now alone among the nation’s big cities in insisting on its own laureate.
But this is San Francisco, where dissent and nonconformity are prized, and so hizzoner merely sat there and beamed at his poet. When a woman in the audience jumped up and launched into her own list of grievances, Brown merely smiled and offered her a private audience.
State Librarian Kevin Starr, a historian and longtime friend of Ferlinghetti, says the post of poet laureate is helping return San Francisco to that long-ago era when cities “were known by the quality of their clergy and the quality of their poets.”
Ferlinghetti is a natural for the one-of-a-kind post, according to Starr and others. He has “something rabbinical in his moral imagination and his willingness to use poetry for prophetic utterance,” Starr said in introducing Ferlinghetti for a recent lecture at the University of San Francisco.
The invitation to speak at the Jesuit institution was a kind of triumphant return for Ferlinghetti.
In his early years in San Francisco, when he was struggling to make a success of City Lights Books and its then-novel idea of selling only paperbacks, he was sacked from a teaching job at the university for suggesting that some of Shakespeare’s sonnets have a homoerotic tinge.
When he was prosecuted for obscenity in 1957 for publishing Ginsberg’s revolutionary poem “Howl,” a teacher from the university testified that the poem was pure filth. Now, the “Howl” decision--in which the judge threw out the charges--is hailed as a landmark case in defense of the 1st Amendment. And Ferlinghetti’s notes from the ill-fated Shakespeare class are kept in a display case in the rare book room of the campus library.
The university is also having a showing of Ferlinghetti’s paintings, charcoal drawings and lithographs (some of his favorite images are of birds, sometimes forlorn, sometimes menacing).
If the students at the lecture were expecting an all-accepting grandfather-poet, a latter-day Whitman, they were disappointed. Ferlinghetti is shy to the point of appearing remote. He is, by temperament if not by birthplace, the European man of letters, impatient with anything less than rigorous thought.
“He seems quite cold,” said one student.
He declined to recite a poem or discuss his poetic technique: “Trade secret.” He brushed aside questions about the future of poetry: “I don’t know any more than you do.” He offered the students none of the usual your-generation-will-save-things uplift.
“The prospect at the end of the century is very dim,” he said. “I think mankind is too greedy and stupid to save himself from ecological disaster.”
The ‘Beatnik Rabble-Rouser’
Ferlinghetti served as a Navy officer at the D-Day landing and later in the Pacific, but he shares none of the current World War II nostalgia. The movie “Saving Private Ryan,” he said, “sets up a model of militaristic madness as a hero.”
After the war the Yonkers, N.Y.-born Ferlinghetti underwent a political awakening while studying painting and literature on the GI Bill at Columbia University and the Sorbonne. He has been a cultural outlaw ever since.
He moved to San Francisco because it was the most European of American cities, and opened the bookstore in 1953. The FBI investigated him after he wrote a poem, “Tentative Description of a Dinner Given to Promote the Impeachment of President Eisenhower,” and concluded he was a “beatnik rabble-rouser.”
He was jailed for protesting the Vietnam War and wrote a political tract about President Nixon, “Tyrannus Nix?”
To get rid of a pesky biographer, he once said he wrote his doctoral thesis on “the place of the urinal in French literature"--a piece of disinformation that found its way into print, to Ferlinghetti’s delight.
To Anne Waldman, a poet and a longtime friend, the glory of Ferlinghetti is that he has shown that it is still possible for poets to prosper outside the cultural hegemony of the university, the big-name publishing houses and the grantsmanship game.
“He’s very much in the ‘outrider’ tradition, staying outside academe, the literary mafias, the competition for government grants and the glad-handing at MLA [Modern Language Assn.] meetings that has infected poetry in this country,” said Waldman, co-founder and professor of poetics at the Naropa (Buddhist) Institute in Boulder, Colo. “He is the least careerist of poets.”
When the editors of “Who’s Who in America” asked him to fill out a standard biographical form, he sent it back with the scrawled comment "[bleep] you.”
A Card-Carrying Poet Laureate
Now, as a sendup of the American business of ritual, he hands out poet laureate business cards. As poet laureate, he writes a column on poetry for the San Francisco Chronicle--the latest lashed at “the spectacle of the U.S. Congress inanely debating the president’s private sins” and included a poem by C.P. Cavafy, “Awaiting the Barbarians,” to back up his point.
He gets numerous invitations to speak his mind on this topic or that and accepts only those that fit his mood and leanings: an AIDS benefit, support for Central American refugees, a drive to make North Beach a national landmark. He joined a lawsuit against Atty. Gen. Janet Reno to prohibit what he calls the “un-American” censoring of the Internet, even if it is being done to protect children from pornography.
He spends his days painting in his art studio in Hunter’s Point, writing (his 14th book of poems, “A Far Rockaway of the Heart,” was published last year), and running the bookstore at Columbus Avenue and Broadway that was the West Coast haunt of Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Kenneth Rexroth, Michael McClure, Gregory Corso and others who gave voice to feelings of disenfranchisement and rebellion in the 1950s and forever changed poetry.
J.D. McClatchy, poetry editor at the Yale Review, said that Ferlinghetti’s “A Coney Island of the Mind” has joined Salinger’s “Catcher in the Rye” and Hemingway’s “The Sun Also Rises” as must reading for youths “just discovering their unruly feelings.”
Indeed, many a student has ventured from the suburbs to San Francisco with a copy of “Coney” in his hip pocket to search out the statue of St. Francis “in a little side street / just off the Avenue” and perhaps
find a very tall and very purely naked
young virgin
with very long and very straight
straw hair.
In the world of literature, however, popularity can have a price. Many critics, including the British literary lion Martin Seymour-Smith, have suggested that Ferlinghetti sacrifices poetic depth for accessibility. He has never won the Pulitzer Prize, widely considered the nation’s top award for poetry.
Although he is inextricably linked--somewhat to his annoyance--to the Beat Generation poets, much of Ferlinghetti’s poetry has less in common with the rage and X-rated daring of Ginsberg et al than with the wit, careful constructions and mournful lyricism of E. E. Cummings and William Carlos Williams.
“There is a haunting, opaque quality to his poems,” wrote one of his biographers, Neeli Cherkovski, “as if the speaker is looking at the world from a distance, over an unbridgeable gulf. The poems are direct gateways to a rare world of angelic and satanic impulses that gently merge.”
Bombs in ‘the Marketplace of Ideas’
Ferlinghetti is a registered member of the Green Party but harbors a liking for Mayor Brown and his outsize personality and sometimes unconventional ways. Brown returns the compliment and calls Ferlinghetti a San Francisco original, which sidesteps the fact that one of his enduring poetic themes is his difficult childhood in New York.
Brown got the notion for a poet laureate while on a trip to the Far East. After he got back to San Francisco, he formed a selection committee to help pick the first laureate. When Brown saw Ferlinghetti’s name on the list, he knew there was only one choice.
“The mayor thought Ferlinghetti was perfect for the job: the more bombs thrown into the marketplace of ideas, the better,” said P.J. Johnston, an official with the municipal transportation system, the Muni, who works with the laureate committee.
Ferlinghetti’s call for ending the annual visitation by the Blue Angels is picking up popular support. So, too, is his demand that the city provide a sanctuary for struggling poets, possibly on the former Treasure Island Navy base. The veteran government-hater finds the latter proposal a truly revolutionary notion.
The goal of any real revolution, explained the poet laureate, “is to open up the society in a way that the poet does not have to be its eternal enemy.”
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f9c9d32d60ce09089b3ab512cd132836 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-feb-21-tr-10085-story.html | On the Trail of Signs and Wonderss | On the Trail of Signs and Wonderss
Where three rivers come together, spirits must abound. I think this as I leave Big Bend National Park and head east toward los tres rios, the confluence of the Rio Grande, the Pecos and the Devils on the Texas-Mexico border.
The cliffs and canyons above these rivers are alive with paintings of fantastic figures, part human, part animal, part bird. They are believed to be ceremonial images 4,000 to 5,000 years old.
It is an April day at the end of the 20th century, and I am searching for holy places. I am here on a journey to honor the life of my eldest son, to make peace with his death by his own hand and to lay down, in the stark and sacred land of the state where we were born, my 20-year burden of guilt and sorrow.
Members of the Rock Art Foundation, which has been instrumental in preserving the images, or pictographs, have offered to guide me. I meet Greg Williams and Patrick McCaffrey at a gas station outside this wide spot in the road called Comstock. As we drive the mile or so to the foundation’s private preserve, my eyes focus on a white statue elevated on rocks. At this half-mile distance, it looks for all the world like Jesus. As we draw closer across the flat desert, I see that it is an abstract shape of a man, pierced by an empty space.
Greg says the recently erected statue commemorates “the spirit of oneness” of the Lower Pecos River people, who lived here for 10,000 years, until the 2nd century. It’s in the shape of the White Shaman--the shaman being both religious and community leader--painted on a nearby rock shelter wall, and it is oriented to mark the sun’s first rays on the summer solstice.
There are some 300 documented rock art locations where the Lower Pecos people lived, an area that stretched from the northern Mexico state of Coahuila to about 60 miles north of the Rio Grande in Texas. One-third of the sites were destroyed by rising waters when the three rivers were impounded in 1968 to form the Lake Amistad National Recreation Area. Others have been defaced by vandals, pollution and weather. Shelter floors containing thousands of years of artifacts have been looted with pickax and shovel.
Photographer Jim Zintgraff of San Antonio came upon some of the paintings while hunting with his father in the 1950s and proceeded to photograph every piece of rock art he could find. Ten years later, he almost literally stumbled upon a University of Texas archeologist, Solveig Turpin, who was documenting pictographs in one of the canyons. They teamed up and eventually produced a photographic essay, “Pecos River Rock Art,” which inspired the creation of Seminole Canyon State Historical Park and the Rock Art Foundation.
I first stopped at the park just to spend the night. I’d heard about the rock art there, and I’d made arrangements to meet up with Greg and Patrick on my way back from Big Bend and to “camp out” in a primitive cabin in the foundation’s Galloway White Shaman Preserve. Now this unimaginable world was about to reveal itself.
We set out on foot down crumbling limestone cliffs until we reach a path of tailings. Tailings are pieces of limestone burned and cracked into small pieces in cooking or ritual fires and tossed out of caves and shelters. Many thousands of fires created this path, which leads to the shallow cave. We walk up stone steps, recently mortared, and are immediately in the presence of the White Shaman.
I seem unable to stand. This is a place for kneeling or lying on your belly on the rocks, or putting your face down and weeping. This is a place where a mother’s grief is at home.
On the rear wall, facing out over the Pecos, figures of life and death are inseparable. A monster of fear undulates like a giant centipede across the rock, faced unflinchingly by the great shaman and his smaller dark, mortal self. Spirits dive and rise all around. An atlatl, a hunting weapon, throws a stone into the air, releases earth to sky, body into spirit.
This clearly is a place of worship; I see the pictographs as color and lines, but I also see the narrative of living souls.
The solid stone floor bears dozens of holes, created perhaps by hands twirling sticks or grinding pebbles for hundreds of centuries. My palm fits perfectly on the edge of a hole six inches deep. I feel the patina of silky-smooth stone and wonder: How many times did hands like mine touch this stone in ceremony? How many heads bowed to the powers represented on the wall?
Across the river canyon is a cliff from which you can hear everything said in this shelter. Was that where the “congregation” watched and listened?
There are many types of rock art in North America. Pecos River rock art is not only among the oldest; it is also distinctive for being primarily spiritual. It is centered on the experience of the shaman as the one who, on behalf of the people, overcomes death to communicate with the spirits of nature. The paintings, perhaps drawn by the shaman, are powerful images of what he experienced.
Some story lines are obvious. Images and symbols are repeated again and again in the same order, and a language, a mythology, emanates from the ancients across the eons. Greg says the paintings in the White Shaman Shelter are like the Rosetta Stone for the Lower Pecos River people: the key to a symbolic language everyone understood and shared.
“There’s big secrets out here,” Greg says. “They’re written on the walls.” And then he adds, quietly, “You can learn a lot about yourself.”
I am learning something. It has to do with the perspective of time and the cycles of the natural world; it has to do with letting go, with gratitude.
Later in the day we are in the state park’s Seminole Canyon, looking up at a huge panther spitting what appears to be blood.
“Trying to figure out what this all means?” the park guide asks. “Well, everybody’s theory is good.”
Today, “everybody” means Greg and Patrick and me, plus a young couple from Oregon, a Texan here to climb rocks, and two children with their father and nearly blind mother. She stands near the paintings, listening, as if to hear from them what they mean. “This is a very sacred place,” she says, to no one in particular.
We leave Spitting Panther and move along the nearly dry stone riverbed to the Fate Bell Shelter. We climb up to a huge stage carved into the limestone cliff, set back, safe from flash floods, above the high-water mark.
Unlike the White Shaman Shelter, which seems to have been used only for ceremonial purposes, people lived in Fate Bell. The walls are scarred with soot, and the floor is a 35-foot-deep midden of ash and rock fragments. From where I stand behind a rope, I can see the layered remains of housekeeping: woven mats of plant fibers to cover the dusty ash floor; flakes of flint from making tools and weapon points; metate stones for grinding food; charred snail shells and animal bone fragments, perhaps the scraps of dinners; hundreds of snail shells with holes drilled in them, to be strung together into necklaces--all of this I can see without moving a particle of dust.
Unfortunately, before these shelters were protected by the state of Texas, scores of artifact hunters moved more than a few particles. Great gaping holes descend through the top layers of the floor, disturbing for all time the fragile history recorded there. The art has survived largely because the Lower Pecos painters used a deeply penetrating mixture of animal blood, bone marrow and fat, yucca plant juices and iron oxide from ground pebbles.
The images in Fate Bell Shelter are on ceilings so high the painters must have built scaffolding. Ten stick figures line up on the rear walls, flanked by red handprints. I think of Egyptian tomb friezes and the Minoan wall paintings at Knossos. Are there graves here, too? One winged shaman wears deer antlers. Other red figures, in what look like ceremonial robes draped from extended arms, float and fly and dream, perhaps in a trance, among snakes.
The next day we head for the Curly Tail Panther Shelter, on private land about 20 miles east, above the Devils River. To reach the panther, we have to climb over the canyon’s edge and along a narrow ledge in the red limestone cliff. It is a cool, overcast morning, and the wind is almost too strong for this--almost but not quite.
“It’s important not to look down,” Patrick advises. So I don’t, but I wish I could be like the ocotillo we passed on the trail, firmly rooted, free to wave its arms in the wind.
Curly Tail Panther Shelter was never home to humans. With its high, vaulted ceiling, curving rock forms, smooth limestone floor and graceful, rounded mouth, it feels like a miniature cathedral.
We sit cross-legged or sprawled on the sloping floor, which seems to welcome our bodies, and watch the sinuous river 250 feet below for a long time. Behind us, a vibrant shaman connects the powers of life and death, making them one, and a fierce panther holds us and the spirit of this place in the powerful curl of its huge red tail.
When I reluctantly take my leave of los tres rios, I stop again at the White Shaman solstice marker, where I notice for the first time the commemorative bricks paving the area surrounding it. I arrange to have one laid in memory of my son. The desert-red brick is there now in the sun and dust and blooming cactus, above the Pecos River canyon. It reads “William Jack, 1955-1976, in Celebration.” My heart, and perhaps his, rests.
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)
GUIDEBOOK
Reading Rocks in Very Old Texas
Getting there: Continental and Southwest fly nonstop from Los Angeles to San Antonio, Texas; United has a direct flight (one stop). Restricted round-trip fares start at $296.
Touring: Seminole Canyon State Historical Park, telephone (915) 292-4464, is about 180 miles west of San Antonio on U.S. 90. The park is open year-round. Admission is $2 per person. Tours ($3 extra) are twice a day from February into June (check for exact dates); no tours Monday and Tuesday in other months.
The Rock Art Foundation conducts day tours by appointment, $10 per person; tel. (888) 525-9907.
Where to stay: I camped in the park; reservations are advised, tel. (512) 389-8900.
Rock art hounds recommend two hotels on U.S. 90 (Avenue F) in Del Rio, 40 miles southeast: La Quinta, tel. (830) 775-7591, has doubles with breakfast for $55-$68; Ramada, tel. (830) 775-1511, has doubles for $69.
For more information: Texas Department of Economic Development, Tourism Division, P.O. Box 12728, Austin, TX 78711-2728; tel. (800) 888-8TEX, Internet https://www.traveltex.com.
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cc6290a8ef2c3a64780240573c97e978 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-feb-26-sp-12058-story.html | Rodman or Not, She’s Living Her Dream | Rodman or Not, She’s Living Her Dream
They were good questions, questions that needed to be asked of Dennis Rodman:
“Don’t you think you are being a distraction, causing this whole circus and prolonging your signing? Don’t you think that’s kind of being selfish for someone trying to be a team player?”
They were posed not by a grizzled reporter, but by Lisa Guerrero. She plays a villainess on the NBC daytime soap opera “Sunset Beach,” but in real life she is anything but. And the one-time Ram cheerleader has shown that, in less than a year as a sports reporter for Channel 2, she is more than just a pretty face.
She is a versatile broadcast journalist who one day can do a light feature on places in Hollywood that Rodman might frequent--a tattoo parlor, a hair salon, a lingerie store--and the next do a serious postgame report from a UCLA-Syracuse basketball game, as she did last weekend.
Guerrero’s question preceded Rodman’s tears during Monday’s news conference at Planet Hollywood.
At first, Rodman said, “I’ve been a team player, honey! . . . For you to say something like that, you’ve got problems.”
The Times’ Bill Plaschke, coming to Guerrero’s defense, shot back at Rodman, “I say you’re selfish too. She’s not the only one who thinks you are selfish. . . . You’ve kept the Lakers waiting 2 1/2 weeks.”
Rodman, before breaking down, said, “It’s amazing. I’m not going to never win at this game of basketball. No matter what I do in this league, no matter what I do for the game of basketball, I’ll never win.”
Later, Guerrero said, “I felt bad that I contributed to upsetting him. I felt maybe I should have gone up and apologized.”
She owed no apology. She had asked a fair question, and her colleagues in the media backed her up. She is one of them.
MORE THAN A WHIM
Becoming a television sports reporter is not something Guerrero did on a whim.
She grew up in Huntington Beach, attending Edison High and Golden West College, and frequently went to sports events with her father, a social worker with the Salvation Army, and her younger brother. Her mother, Lucy, died of cancer when Guerrero was 8.
She was a Ram cheerleader from 1983-87 and the squad captain her final year. Her biography one year said she aspired to become an actress and a sports reporter, which brought snickers from some.
Today, she is both. She plays the evil Francesca Vargas on “Sunset Beach.”
The connections she made with the Rams led to a job with the Atlanta Falcons as the team’s entertainment director. She was in charge of the national anthem, the halftime show and postgame activities. At 24, she was the youngest--and only female--entertainment director in the NFL.
Three years later she went to the New England Patriots in the same position. While in Boston, a guest appearance on a radio sports-talk show led to her own TV show on New England SportsChannel.
In 1994, she returned to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career and also to look for work as a sports reporter.
It took awhile, then everything happened at once. She got the “Sunset Beach” part and the Channel 2 job on the same day--April 22 last year.
“My father told me to go buy a lottery ticket that day,” she said.
Her father is Walter Coles, her brother Richard Coles and the credits on “Sunset Beach” list her as Lisa Guerrero Coles. Guerrero was her mother’s maiden name and she uses it in her honor. She is simply Lisa Guerrero in the sports world.
IN THE NEWS
Joe McDonnell, having been hired by KFWB for the 3-7 p.m. shift, is back to doing sports reports and breaking stories. It may be what he does best, and he’s happy about it.
“After 10 years, I was burnt out on doing sports talk,” he said.
At KFWB, McDonnell joins a formidable team of Bret Lewis, Ted Sobel, Rod Van Hook and Joe Cala.
RADIO DAZE
It was noted in this space recently that San Diego’s XTRA (690) beat L.A. sister station XTRA (1150) (KXTA are the official call letters) in the last Arbitron ratings book in L.A. But Roy Laughlin, the general manager at 1150 and sister station KIIS-FM, points out that may be bogus because the ratings made no sense. He produced a letter from Arbitron stating, “We truly are embarrassed about the number of errors and plan to audit diaries.”
Laughlin also noted that he never said people in L.A. didn’t want to listen to 690’s Lee Hamilton, as Hamilton claimed. Laughlin is right. What Laughlin said in January 1997, when 1150 went to all sports, was, “My pitch to Jacor is that people in Los Angeles don’t care about San Diego sports. When Bobby Ross left the Chargers, that’s all Hacksaw [Hamilton] could talk about.”
Also, Mike Thompson, 1150’s operations manager, said his station had nothing to do with McDonnell and Doug Krikorian not doing the 11 p.m.-3 a.m. shift on ESPN radio for vacationing Todd Wright this week. “I think ESPN is just going to use them later,” Thompson said. “We’d like to see Joe get the work.”
SHORT WAVES
Viewers get a choice with tonight’s Laker-Clipper game at the Great Western Forum, Rodman’s Laker debut. It will be on both Fox Sports West, with Chick Hearn and Stu Lantz, and Channel 9, with Ralph Lawler and Bill Walton. You make the call. . . . FX wraps up its five-game college basketball package with a good one--Arizona at Stanford on Saturday night at 7:30. . . . KRLA has made a deal with the Galaxy to carry 30 of their 32 regular-season soccer games.
IN CLOSING
Is 1150 turning into a halfway house for NBA misfits? First there was Karl Malone, now the station is close to a six-figure deal with Rodman for him to do phone-in segments for both the AM station and KIIS-FM, and also to make appearances at a nightclub on behalf of both.
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)
What Los Angeles Is Watching
A sampling of L.A. Nielsen ratings for Feb. 20-21, including sports on cable networks: *--*
Over-the-air Channel Rating Share Pro basketball: Seattle at Utah 4 3.4 10 Boxing: Tony Lopez vs. Hector Quiroz 9 3.1 7 Golf: Nissan Open at Riviera 2 2.7 8 Track & field: D.C. Invitational (tape) 4 2.5 8 Boxing: Paulie Ayala vs. David Vasquez 34 1.7 5 College basketball: Utah at Fresno State 7 1.3 4 College basketball: Kentucky at Arkansas 2 1.1 3 Hockey: Mighty Ducks at Vancouver 9 0.9 2 Cable Network Rating Share
*--*
*--*
Boxing: Felix Trinidad vs. Pernell Whitaker HBO 4.1 8 Boxing: Oscar De La Hoya vs. Ike Quartey (tape) HBO 3.3 7 Golf: Senior GTE Classic ESPN 1.0 3 College basketball: Providence at Villanova ESPN 0.8 2 Hockey: Kings at Calgary FSW2 0.7 1 College basketball: Clemson at Duke ESPN 0.6 2 College basketball: California at Washington FSW 0.5 1 Pro basketball: Dallas at Clippers FSW2 0.3 1 Tennis: ATP Kroger/St. Jude Classic FSW 0.3 1 SUNDAY Over-the-air Channel Rating Share Pro basketball: Lakers at Seattle 4 10.6 23 Pro basketball: Detroit at San Antonio 4 5.9 16 Golf: Nissan Open at Riviera 2 5.9 15 Pro basketball: Houston at Orlando 4 5.4 13 College basketball: Syracuse at UCLA 7 2.3 6 College basketball: Michigan at Indiana 2 1.2 3 Hockey: Colorado at Dallas 11 0.4 1
*--*
*--*
Cable Network Rating Share Auto racing: Dura Lube/Big Kmart 400 TNN 1.5 4 Hockey: Pittsburgh at Philadelphia ESPN 0.5 1 Golf: Senior GTE Classic ESPN 0.3 1 Soccer: Chile vs. U.S. ESPN 0.3 1 Tennis: ATP Kroger/St. Jude Classic FSW 0.2 1
*--*
Note: Each rating point represents 50,092 L.A. households. Cable ratings reflect the entire market, even though cable is in only 63% of L.A. households.
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a6ec8918a7b7237267beba4fe8439831 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-jan-12-fi-62726-story.html | Chinese Investment Firm Gitic Collapses | Chinese Investment Firm Gitic Collapses
In one of China’s biggest corporate collapses, the investment arm of Guangdong province declared bankruptcy Sunday, leaving debts of nearly $4.4 billion to mostly foreign lenders, who had believed the government would guarantee the loans.
But in a lesson for both reckless Chinese borrowers and risk-taking foreign lenders, officials said Sunday that there were no guarantees on loans to Guangdong International Trust & Investment Corp., known as Gitic,
Authorities shut down Gitic, China’s second-largest trust and investment company, in October after it missed large debt payments and its management came under investigation.
“Gitic’s board decided to file for bankruptcy because of massive internal and external debt, extremely chaotic management and liabilities that seriously exceeded assets,” said Wu Jiesu, head of the central bank-appointed liquidation committee.
But the move surprised parties on all sides, who had assumed that Gitic, one of China’s best-known borrowers on world capital markets, was too big and well-connected to be allowed to fail.
Gitic’s closure has caused foreign bankers to drastically reduce new lending to Chinese entities and to closely examine loans to other trust companies. But despite the short- term pain, say analysts, the Chinese authorities are doing exactly what international economists have been encouraging it--and other troubled Asian governments--to do: clear out failed institutions instead of bailing them out.
“The closure of Gitic will send the right message out to all parties,” said Fred Hu, executive director of Asian economic research at investment bank Goldman Sachs in Hong Kong. “Foreign banks must be very, very cautious in evaluating credit-worthiness. They can’t think their loans will be guaranteed by the government. For domestic borrowers, it’s a wake-up call: They can’t engage in borrowing sprees and be bailed out by the government. From now on, we should see greater discipline on all sides.”
Gitic representatives told a meeting of about 200 local and foreign investors Sunday that individual Chinese creditors and small investors would be paid back first, in accordance with Chinese law.
One of the thorniest issues to be resolved is the priority for repayment. Despite earlier assurances that foreign creditors would receive priority treatment, trustees said international institutions--including Citibank, Chase Manhattan and Merrill Lynch--must get in line with the rest of the creditors for repayment. The company has assets of $2.6 billion, a spokesman said. It was unclear when or how much of the debt could be repaid.
“There are more or less 25,000 individual Chinese creditors who will be paid first,” Gitic spokesman Wu Xiaohua told reporters. “Foreign creditors will be repaid in accordance with international laws, which means they will not be getting back every cent.”
Gitic has about 240 major creditors, including 135 foreign institutions dominated by Japanese and European banks. Authorities hint that loans that were registered with the government will be dealt with first, and those that bypassed bureaucratic formalities will have to take their chances.
“This will certainly put a chill on future lending to China,” said one U.S. banker.
Gitic and hundreds of other investment companies were set up in the 1980s to help channel foreign financing into the country as Communist China shifted toward a market economy. These “windows” into China were often backed by local governments, making the trust and investment companies, or ITICs, seem as secure as sovereign risk.
Money poured in from international investors eager to ride the country’s strong economic growth and huge infrastructure projects. Gitic officials were known in Hong Kong for their highflying lifestyles, Mercedes-Benzes and personal stashes of cash.
But as China opened up its economy and financiers could invest directly in projects, the ITICs turned to more aggressive gambits to keep the money flowing. Once a model of successful “red capitalism” in Guangdong, China’s wealthiest province, Gitic and its subsidiaries racked up billions of dollars of bad investments in property and stock speculation. Gitic became instead a symbol of the weakness of China’s financial system and Beijing’s fierce resolve to reform it.
“Quite a few of the ITICs have run high financial risks,” said Zhang Lei, an economics professor at Shanghai Finance and Economics University.
“In the past, they didn’t worry about getting into trouble, because the local government acts as a strong backstop to save them and support them.”
But after Premier Zhu Rongji called for a crackdown on financial excesses last fall, it became clear that there were no more blank checks. “Gitic was chosen as a model to others to let them know if they run too high risks, this is what will happen,” Zhang said.
The government concedes that as many as one-third of the country’s 440 state-owned trust companies are insolvent, and that another one-third are losing money. The government plans to consolidate the sector into a few dozen institutions.
Only a handful of the other trust companies have a large amount of foreign debt.
One of them, Fujian ITIC, has a U.S. dollar bond that comes due early next month and is said to have even more debt than its counterpart in Guangdong.
But analysts say Beijing won’t be so quick to shut down another.
“The government doesn’t want to handle two at the same time,” said Andy Xie, Morgan Stanley’s chief economist for greater China.
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d254c25369dd336ac438b8e1c1521950 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-jan-13-sp-63165-story.html | This Is Greatness No One Could Pin Down | This Is Greatness No One Could Pin Down
. . . Like you remember where you were when Elvis died. That’s what you’ll remember, where you were if he retired. ‘Cause I’ll tell you something, when Michael Jordan retires, there’ll be a lot of problems, because we have a lot of young talent but Michael Jordan is something you can’t replace.
He’s Jesus in tennis shoes.
--Jayson Williams, New Jersey Nets
*
I knew Mike. Oh boy, did I know Mike.
I feel like the ancient Dustin Hoffman character in “Little Big Man,” creaking, “I knew Gen. George Armstrong Custer, for what he was and what he wasn’t.”
I knew Michael Jordan for what he was, the greatest basketball player ever to lace up a new pair of $125, named-after-himself sneakers before every game and a genuinely nice guy besides, and what he wasn’t, the All-American boy-next-door, an image he courted.
As a player, he was like something descended from heaven. Fellow greats Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, who would have been 1-2 picks for best player before He arrived--with Jordan, hyperbole was never the danger, sacrilege was--all but knelt at his feet.
In 1986 when Jordan, then a second-year pro with the lowly Bulls, hit the Celtics for 63 points in a playoff game, Bird, who usually took note of opponents only to sneer at them, said he was “God disguised as Michael Jordan.”
Johnson, who once signed to play Jordan one on one for money until the league nixed it, later noted, “We did what we had to do. Nobody can take away [Bird’s] three championships, my five championships but we’re not sitting here, thinking that we were better than Michael Jordan.”
For peers, fans, the press, watching him was a privilege--basketball raised to the level of an art form, an unscripted, competitive ballet, dominated night in and night out by a single dancer who leaps and pirouettes high above the others, leaving them worn out and twitching on the stage.
From my perspective, it was a privilege, a lot of fun and a pain in the rear. He was as much commercial entity--forget about $100-million contracts; between his $33-million contract and estimated $70 million in off-court deals, he might have grossed $100 mil last year--and cultural icon as basketball player. It was as easy to get an audience with the pope.
Around Mike, the press found itself reduced to paparazzi, firing questions out of the crowd. I once spent 10 days with the Bulls, doing a piece for Esquire, without being able to talk to Jordan alone. We did arrange a photo shoot--he was happy to do that but flatly turned down the magazine’s request for him to pose with Dennis Rodman--but his deal on exclusive interviews was to keep promising he’d talk to you in the next town, and the next, and the next. . . .
I had known it always went that way, and besides, Jordan always said plenty in the group sessions. However the editors, dismayed, reopened negotiations with Mike’s scheduler, Barbara Allen, from agent David Falk’s office.
Word came back: If I would fly back to Chicago, Mike would sit down with me.
I flew back, went to a Saturday practice and saw Mike. He explained, pleasantly as ever, he had to do “NBA Entertainment” today, and see a dentist, etc.
I flew home. The editors called a few days later to tell me Allen now said Mike had cleared time for me--on Wednesday of that week--and where was I?
I closed my piece with that story, noting I had to go home for my daughter’s wedding. She was 2 at the time, but I was afraid I might miss it, waiting to sit down with Mike.
Only Marginally of This Earth
Are you of this Earth?
--Foreign journalist, 1992 Olympics
Well, I come from Chicago.
--Jordan
No one could have set out to become Michael Jordan, since the position didn’t exist before he created it. But he didn’t lack ambition. If they filmed his life, it would look more like “Predator” than “Space Jam.” In real life, Mike might eat Bugs.
He was one of five children of James, a mid-level manager, and Deloris, a bank official, in Wilmington, N.C. A late bloomer, he later told of worrying about his big ears and taking home economics courses to learn how to cook, in case he could never find a wife.
Wasn’t that sweet?
He slew his inner dweeb fast. He lived to compete, throwing himself into anything he tried. Lightly recruited until his senior year at Laney High, he burst into prominence, became a McDonald’s All-American, landed a scholarship at . . . drumroll . . . North Carolina, started as a freshman, rare under Dean Smith in the days of four-year players, and then beat Georgetown with his famous 16-footer in the 1982 NCAA final.
Clearly, a young man moving that fast didn’t have to worry about late starts. He starred in the 1984 Olympics under Bob Knight, impressing even that most demanding of tyrants as the best he’d ever seen.
Then he turned pro and was drafted . . . third.
As promising as Jordan looked, no one saw actual transcendence in him, not even the Bulls, who drafted him after Houston had taken Hakeem Olajuwon and Portland had selected Sam Bowie, a journeyman-to-be who would be forever marked by the pick.
“We thought [Jordan] was going to be good or we don’t take him third in the draft,” said Kevin Loughery, Mike’s first pro coach. “We also thought he was a franchise player. But never could we have fathomed he was gonna be the best player ever to play.
“You look back, in college, he played the passing game. Then he went to the Olympic team, they also played passing game. But when we put in one-on-one drills the third day, we saw he had the ability to take the ball any place on the floor that he wanted to take it and that he could do things that shocked us.
“Then about two weeks into the camp, you find out he was about as great a competitor as you’re gonna find. Then you know you got a great player.
“And then, you know, the guy walks in the gym the first day as a rookie coming out of college early, an early entry in the draft, and he’s the leader immediately--so he had the whole package.”
Well, not quite the whole package. Jordan’s NBA career can be divided into two, by decade.
In the ‘80s, he didn’t pass much; didn’t trust teammates who were, first, old hacks and then, kids like Scottie Pippen and Horace Grant, often dismissing them (“my supporting cast”) while winning only individual honors.
In the ‘90s, he settled down, wised up and, as his teammates grew up, started the last, great dynasty of the 20th century.
The hits started happening:
* 1988-89--Makes “the Shot,” a floating 20-footer over Craig Ehlo that will be replayed at least 10 million times, at the end of Game 5 to KO the Cleveland Cavaliers in the playoffs.
* 1990-91--Leads the Bulls to a 4-1 rout of the Lakers for his and the Bulls’ first NBA title. In the pivotal Game 3 at the Forum, he drives the length of the floor in the closing seconds, beats Byron Scott and makes a 17-footer over Vlade Divac to force overtime.
* 1991-92--Greases Clyde Drexler in the finals as the Bulls oust the Portland Trail Blazers in six. Hits so many three-pointers in Game 1, he turns to Magic Johnson, at courtside for NBC, shrugs and turns his palms up, as if to say, “How do I know where it came from?”
* 1992-93--Leads the Bulls over the Phoenix Suns, 4-2, in the finals, after postseason turbulence. During the season, a $57,000 check written by Jordan to a convicted felon named Slim Bouler surfaces. Mike says it was a loan, to help Slim open a driving range. Months later, in court, he admits blithely that he’d lied, he was paying off a golf debt. Sensational stories of his gambling exploits dog him through the playoffs, with a tell-all book by a friend, Richard Esquinas, claiming that Jordan lost more than $1 million to him at golf. Through it all, Jordan leads the Bulls back from a 0-2 deficit against Pat Riley’s Knicks in the Eastern finals. They dispatch the Knicks, 4-2, and the Suns in the finals, 4-2.
That summer, Jordan’s father is murdered. A few months later, Michael retires, referring to the press as “you all” 38 times at his farewell press conference.
Well, nobody said being king of the world was always going to be easy, or fun.
It’s Not Nice to Laugh at Michael
I remember one play. They’d been driving down the middle, so I said I’d take a hard foul on Michael. The next time down, he hit me in the side of the head and said, “Don’t think I forgot about that.”
He’s one of the most amazing men I’ve ever met.
--Jayson Williams, after ’98 playoff series against Bulls
In a further demonstration that Mike thought he was Superman--and in a rare failure that proved he wasn’t--he took up baseball, which he hadn’t played since his teens, announcing he wanted to make the big leagues.
Even with Bull owner Jerry Reinsdorf owning the White Sox and planning to call him up, just for the spectacle (and money), even with Mike’s presence dominating coverage of the national pastime as a ping hitter at double-A Birmingham, it didn’t happen. Jordan never said so but he hated to look bad and might have seized on the ugly strike that continued into the spring of 1995 as a pretext for leaving.
He rejoined the Bulls, looking rusty. But he wasn’t so bad he couldn’t drop 55 on Riley’s Knicks on a star-studded night in Madison Square Garden and then, double-teamed at the end, pass to Bill Wennington for the game winner.
But the Bulls were ousted in the second round of the ’95 playoffs, with Jordan fading late. Even admirers thought he was past it and dared to say it aloud, as when Orlando’s Nick Anderson, a friend, noted that No. 45, which Mike was then wearing, didn’t sky like old No. 23.
Basketball had never known the wrath of Jordan scorned. That summer, while in Los Angeles making “Space Jam,” he worked out daily under a portable dome, erected in the parking lot at Warner Bros., with weight room and full-court floor.
Jordan reported to camp lean, hungry and teed off. In one practice, he even punched little Steve Kerr, who had dared to oppose him in a labor dispute.
“Didn’t surprise me, especially the way Michael approached training camp,” Kerr said later. “I mean, he had a chip on his shoulder. He had something to prove. Every day was a war out there and he set the tone right from the beginning, the first day of camp.”
And the hits resumed happening:
* 1995-96--The Bulls win 72 games, breaking the Lakers’ old record by three, blitz through the playoffs with a 126-3 mark and win title No. 4.
* 1996-97--The dynasty riven with intramural strife, Mike signs for one year--at an unheard-of $30 million, after Reinsdorf hears that Falk is trying to work a deal with the Knicks. The Bulls, who are supposed to cruise to rest their old bodies, win another 69 games, making this the greatest two-season run in basketball history. The Bulls roll through the early rounds of the playoffs with only an occasional bump, like the Game 2 upset at the hands of the Atlanta Hawks in Chicago. A former member of the Bulls’ staff describes Jordan’s reaction:
“Mike walked in the locker room and he killed every one of those guys. Phil [Jackson, the coach] and [assistants] Jimmy Rodgers and Frank Hamblen and Bill Cartwright just leaned up against the wall. [Jordan] was going up and down the lockers--'You guys don’t know what it takes to win!'--he just killed them all. It was the greatest speech you ever heard. It was like Knute Rockne.
“And when he was done, Phil just said, ‘That’s it.’ ”
Then, in the finals at Salt Lake City, with the Bulls suddenly in trouble, Jordan, faint with flu, arises to score 38 points in the pivotal Game 5 in the Delta Center. He makes the game-winning 20-footer, of course, in the single-most stupendous game of an unbelievable career.
* 1997-98--The career is still going, even though the hour is getting late, for the Bulls as a unit, if not for Mike, personally. Jackson almost leaves but Mike persuades him to return. Jackson makes Reinsdorf fly to Idaho to re-sign him--for one more year. Jordan makes Reinsdorf fly to Las Vegas to re-sign him--for one more year, at $33 million. With Pippen injured, feuding with management and out until January, the Bulls, clearly over the hill, start 8-7, then, with the buzzards circling, finish 54-13, making it the best three-year run in NBA history.
They beat the Jazz in six again, with Mike making the last shot he may ever take--you never know about this guy, after all--to win the final game.
Jackson, without whom Jordan has said he won’t stay, leaves over the summer. The Bulls name Tim Floyd to replace Jackson--conditionally, depending on Jordan’s wishes.
The charade is on, for real. Reinsdorf and General Manager Jerry Krause, who let their relationship with Pippen deteriorate in the belief that the dynasty would be over before now, insist to the end they’re trying to keep the team together.
“The No. 1 objective we have here as a franchise is to bring Michael Jordan, to bring the championship team back,” Krause says Monday, amid reports Jordan will announce his retirement.
The No. 1 objective they have as a franchise is to make sure they don’t get blamed for running off the greatest player in history and ringing down the curtain on the dynasty before the play is over.
But it is. Jordan reportedly told Falk on Sunday night, Reinsdorf, Commissioner David Stern and teammates Ron Harper and Pippen on Monday. It’s all over but the quotes. Soon, he’ll belong to the ages.
*
“I feel responsible as a young player to try to carry on the tradition that he and other players have developed, both on and off the court.”
Kobe Bryant, Laker Guard
*
“He’s leaving with championships. He’s leaving with a ton of accomplishments. But the NBA will be all right. I think the league will survive without a dominant, Michael Jordan-type player.”
Grant Hill, Detroit Piston Forward
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a6de0db89acf90257f51f0770346dc08 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-jan-14-ca-63257-story.html | License to Hunt Ducks | License to Hunt Ducks
Mighty Duck captain Paul Kariya remembers what it was like to be a hockey fan. Growing up in Vancouver, Kariya watched his idol, Wayne Gretzky, play for the Edmonton Oilers on television; he studied every move and every play.
That’s why the 24-year-old National Hockey League superstar feels strange when starry-eyed kids look up to him the way he once looked up to the Great One.
“When a kid comes up to me, it’s neat, but at the same time it’s a little uncomfortable because I can remember being that kid, you know. It wasn’t that long ago,” Kariya said after Saturday’s practice at Disney Ice in Anaheim.
Kariya was 17 when he met Gretzky. Local hockey fans won’t have to wait so long to meet their Mighty Duck idols. Fans have a chance to come face to face with the team Sunday at Mighty Ducks FanFair ’99 at the Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim.
Barring trades or injuries, all the players are guaranteed to be there: Attendance is mandatory for players and coaches.
Wingers, defensemen, goalies, coaches and more will be available for autographs, pictures, a pancake breakfast and plenty of hockey talk. There will be face-painting, temporary tattoos and carnival games for kids.
All ticket-holders will have the opportunity to skate on Pond ice and tour the Mighty Duck locker room. Some lucky fans--the highest bidders of a silent auction--will skate for 15 minutes one-on-one with the players.
For Teemu Selanne, a right winger with boyish good looks who led the league in scoring last year and was a finalist for the MVP award, interacting with fans is a special opportunity.
Selanne, an admirer of Gretzky and fellow countryman and future Hall of Famer Jari Kurri, never met his idols as a youngster.
He played hockey in Finland while Gretzky and Kurri were skating far away in North America. Still, Selanne remained an avid fan and says that home ice support is critical to the team. Selanne’s blue eyes light up and he flashes a wide smile when he talks about the fans.
“I think the fans make hockey so special,” Selanne said. “Some nights you’re not ready to play, but when you see the fans supporting you, and they’re into the game, it makes you step up and push yourself to play at the level you should play at all the time.”
Teammate Jim McKenzie, a 6 foot 4, 229-pound left winger, agreed. “Fans have a huge impact [on my game]. . . . Certainly they can feed off of us when we have a big goal, or a big hit or a big save, a big play. But it’s the same way the other way. When we come out, and they’re yelling and screaming, and they’re on their feet making noise, it certainly gets us even more fired up.”
McKenzie, who never went to an NHL game as a fan, will be at Mighty Ducks FanFair for the first time.
“It’s certainly humbling to see the effect you have, on young kids especially,” McKenzie said. “When you go in and talk to them, their eyes are all as big as saucers, and they hang on every word you say.”
The Disney-owned team does its part to give back to kids. FanFair ’99 is one of three annual Mighty Duck events that benefit children through Disney GOALS (Growth Opportunities through Athletics, Learning and Service).
The nonprofit organization based in Anaheim creates opportunities year-round for underprivileged children between the ages of 6 and 19 to participate in academic, hockey and community service activities.
Last year, Mighty Ducks FanFair raised more than $100,000 for Disney GOALS.
“This is one way that you can really do something to help inspire a child. By giving us a helping hand, we can extend one to the children who need it most,” said Dave Wilk, founding executive director of Disney GOALS.
Sure, the Ducks’ charity work shows they’re nice guys off the ice, but fans love them because they’re tough when it counts. Charles Protzman of Irvine bought his FanFair ’99 tickets because he is eager to meet some of the Duck enforcers.
“I want to see how big McKenzie and [Stu] Grimson are compared to us. I know they’re big, but you see them on TV, and, oh, they don’t look that big, and then you get up next to them in person, and they’re like 6-5 or 6-6,” he said.
When fans get up close and personal, they might realize that inside those mighty frames are big guys who sometimes act like big kids.
“The pancakes. I look forward to those,” said 6-foot, 206-pound Mighty Duck Ted Drury.
OK. It’s not just the pancakes. Drury is happy to thrill young admirers the way another pro thrilled him.
Drury recalled being a star-struck young boy in Connecticut when he met NHL Hall of Famer Gordie Howe.
“I was so excited,” Drury said. “I don’t even remember what I said. I just remember kind of being in awe of him. Just staring at him.”
BE THERE
Mighty Ducks FanFair ’99, 11 a.m.-4 p.m Sunday at the Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim, 2695 Katella Ave. (The pancake breakfast, open to the first 500 fans who bought FanFair ’99 tickets, is sold out.) Tickets are $20 for adults, $10 for ages 4-12; admission is free for children 3 and younger. Tickets may be purchased through Ticketmaster, (714) 740-2000; the Arrowhead Pond box office, (714) 704-2400; or the Mighty Ducks ticket office, (714) 704-2701.
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1bb9fa9e224fba38733924b7d08a3ffa | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-jan-22-me-520-story.html | Man Sentenced to Death in Killings | Man Sentenced to Death in Killings
Serial killer Gerald Parker, dubbed the “bedroom basher” for a rampage of sex slayings that terrorized Orange County in the 1970s, was sentenced to death Thursday after an emotional hearing in which victims’ families spoke of their years of anguish and loss.
Using new DNA technology and a computer database, prosecutors developed the case against Parker 17 years after he raped and murdered five Orange County women and killed the unborn child of a sixth woman. The latter victim’s husband was later wrongly convicted of the crime.
Orange County Superior Court Judge Francisco P. Briseno told Parker his “inhuman behavior is beyond belief” and rejected defense arguments that he was a drug addict and came from a troubled family.
Several relatives of the victims addressed the court--some saying the end to the long-running case would help bring closure. But others said they remained emotionally crushed by the murders.
Parker “will have a peaceful death” by lethal injection, said Jackie Bissonnette, whose sister, Debra Lynn Senior, 17, was among Parker’s victims. “Our sisters, daughters and friends were left bleeding to die.”
One of the victims, Dianna D’Aiello, survived the attack, but the unborn child she was carrying died as a result of her injuries. D’Aiello’s husband at the time, Kevin Green, was convicted of the murder and spent nearly 17 years in prison. Green was freed in 1996, when officials acknowledged that they had convicted the wrong man.
D’Aiello has maintained that she still partially blames her ex-husband for their baby’s death. She said she believes both Green and Parker attacked her the night of the rape, with Green assaulting her first. When her ex-husband left, Aiello said, Parker broke into her apartment shortly after. She has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against him, and on Thursday reiterated her claim.
“I feel that I’ve been beaten and raped by two men. By a stranger and by a man who I loved and trusted,” D’Aiello said in court.
Green, who now lives in Missouri and has remarried, said his ex-wife’s comments should not detract from the judge’s decision.
“As far as Dianna and all that kind of stuff is concerned, I just wish that wasn’t a distraction on this date,” he said. “I figure the man has earned what he was been sentenced to, and I hope this gets closure to all of those other families.”
Parker, 43, was convicted in October. According to authorities, Parker knocked his victims unconscious with a blunt object and raped or attempted to rape them before killing them. Parker confessed to the crimes and said he was remorseful.
On Thursday, a bearded Parker, wearing shackles and a jail jumpsuit, stared straight ahead during most of the proceedings. He declined to address the court.
Victim Debora Kennedy’s sister, Ann Jones, said her younger sister’s murder has had a devastating effect on the whole family. Jones said that even after all these years, she still doesn’t leave a window open or answer the phone when her husband is not around.
“I think the fears that I feel will always be with me,” she said. “I’m trying to get over this, but I’m not sure that I ever will.”
Assistant Dist. Atty. Mike Jacobs, who prosecuted Parker, said he has no doubt that the right person is paying for the crime.
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bacdb70ffa1f1c264acdb1d7f7c828bf | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-jan-22-mn-524-story.html | A & M Records Closes; Geffen Lays Off 110 | A & M Records Closes; Geffen Lays Off 110
After 37 years of spinning out hits by such acts as Cat Stevens, the Police and Sheryl Crow, A & M Records closed its doors Thursday--firing nearly 170 employees who were given the day to pack and leave.
Artists and executives hugged in the parking lot as weeping employees carried boxes of personal belongings to their cars. Above them, the A & M sign was draped with a black band and the flag flew at half staff, to commemorate, fired workers said, the death of the historic Hollywood record label.
Those fired at A & M were among nearly 500 employees cut in Los Angeles and New York by Seagram Co. as part of a massive restructuring that will eliminate thousands of music industry jobs worldwide. Two miles down the road, Geffen Record employees stripped the walls of gold records and carried boxes down Sunset Boulevard past the label’s headquarters after being notified that they too no longer had jobs. About 110 Geffen employees were fired.
Signaling an end to an era in the Los Angeles music scene, the layoffs underscore the changing economics and direction of the music business as Seagram, which recently completed its $10.4-billion acquisition of PolyGram, combines two of the world’s biggest record conglomerates.
At their peaks, A & M and Geffen represented the commercial and artistic potential of independent labels, which have been the proving ground for scores of musicians whose talents and vision did not fit into more mainstream labels.
But both labels began losing autonomy after they were bought up during the last decade by conglomerates PolyGram and MCA.
Changes Alarm Some Critics
Some industry critics are alarmed at the changes. With power concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, the danger, they fear, is that there will be no room left for the independent spirit that helped build such legendary independent labels as Atlantic, Motown, Island, A & M and Geffen. Among the artists launched by A & M and Geffen alone: Cat Stevens, the Police, Nirvana, the Carpenters, Joe Cocker, Beck and Guns ‘N Roses.
“This isn’t about Universal or Seagram,” said A & M chief Al Cafaro, who also was fired. “The record business is changing fundamentally. Don’t think that there are calm seas on the other side of this threshold. If the quake that devoured A & M and Geffen is a 6.0 on the Richter scale, there is a 7.0 coming in this industry. It’s a Wall Street world now. Get ready.”
Sources say Seagram is considering selling the A & M lot--which houses film star Charlie Chaplin’s former sound stage--and the Geffen Records’ headquarters--a converted group of houses once owned by songwriter Hoagy Carmichael.
Executives at Seagram’s Universal Music Group say that A & M and Geffen will be folded into Interscope Records to form IGA--one of four large music groups made up of consolidated labels acquired in Seagram’s purchase of PolyGram. About 200 employees were laid off Thursday at the New York-based Motown, Mercury and Island labels. About 250 artists will also be dropped over the next few months, sources said.
Universal executives say they intend to preserve the individual identities of the downsized labels as they fold them into larger groups, but the handful of A & M and Geffen employees who survived the blood bath were skeptical.
A & M, Geffen, Motown, Mercury and Island all have performed poorly in recent years, producing few hits and often operating in the red. Some label employees kept on by Seagram privately acknowledged that the downsizing was merited. Several workers who lost their jobs even praised Seagram’s handling of the layoffs, saying the company had offered them generous severance packages.
“While change is always difficult, the restructuring of the labels is necessary for us to be more competitive, develop artists’ careers and pave the way for meaningful growth,” Universal Music Group said in a statement.
Seagram expects to produce $300 million in savings annually by consolidating the companies. Analysts suggest that the restructuring will provide Universal with unparalleled economies of scale guaranteed to boost operating margins and position the conglomerate for strong earnings growth over the next three years.
But that’s little consolation to record label employees who were issued pink slips Thursday morning.
At A & M, employees wore baseball caps embroidered with the slogan “The Last of the Lot” as they gathered for a 9:30 a.m. meeting inside the Charlie Chaplin sound stage to hear the news. Sheryl Crow and Soundgarden’s Chris Cornell stopped by the lot to trade war stories with tearful employees in the afternoon. Before the day was over, Universal officials ordered A & M to remove the black band that employees had draped around the company’s famed trumpet overlooking the label’s La Brea Avenue entrance.
While A & M and Geffen will live on in name, the gutting of their enterprises effectively ends their history as independent upstarts.
A & M started modestly, with trumpeter Herb Alpert and his business partner Jerry Moss pooling their money and initials to create a record company. “The Lonely Bull,” by Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, was a huge first hit for the nascent label in 1962, and the co-founder would remain the label’s star until Carole King, Joe Cocker, Burt Bacharach, Cat Stevens and the Carpenters were added in the late ‘60s or early ‘70s.
The company turned to arena rockers--Styx, Peter Frampton, Supertramp--as the ‘70s wore on, and found its flagship act for the 1980s in a British trio called the Police. Janet Jackson became a huge A & M star before Alpert and Moss decided to sell the company to PolyGram for about $500 million in 1989. Alpert and Moss quit the label after a series of disputes with corporate management at PolyGram.
“It’s certainly sad to see what is happening today, but to tell you the truth, you could see it coming once A & M became part of the [conglomerate structure] at Polygram,” Alpert said Thursday. “I saw that train coming . . . the sharp contrast between the independent world and that corporate. I don’t think their bottom line has much to do with music or artists. It’s very black and white.
“I’m not speaking for all corporations, just my experience at PolyGram. It seemed like they were so bottom-line conscious that it was hard to make a decision like we used to . . . just from the gut, based on feeling, not whether an artist might be able to sell oodles of records.”
Roster of Big Names
Where A & M started small, Geffen Records landed with a splash in 1980 as its founder, David Geffen, returned to the music industry after an eight-year hiatus to sign John Lennon, Elton John and Donna Summer to his new namesake label.
Geffen picked up where he left off with the 1972 sale of his Asylum Records, a label that boasted Jackson Browne, the Eagles and Linda Ronstadt. But Lennon’s murder rattled the company badly, and a slump followed.
Geffen eventually found hit-makers in Aerosmith and Cher, acts viewed as retreads by others in the industry, and huge new super bands Guns ‘N Roses and Nirvana. The roster also included veterans Don Henley and Peter Gabriel, who hit their solo strides in the 1980s, and quick-hit money-makers such as Whitesnake.
Geffen employees were told about their fate in a pair of 45-minute morning meetings in the conference room of the Geffen Records building, at the west edge of the Sunset Strip. Later in the day, several dozen employees, including fired Chairman Eddie Rosenblatt, gathered across the street at the Rainbow Room for what they called a “wake.”
“It’s very sad for me,” said David Geffen, who sold the label to MCA in 1990 and now is a principal in DreamWorks SKG. “The thing that made Geffen and A & M and Interscope appealing and successful was the fact that they were small, agile and were able to react quickly. That gave an artist a certain kind of involvement and attention compared to what the big record companies could provide. Now Geffen and A & M and Interscope are one big company. It’s a painful thing to watch.”
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7a56d45aa16237130b821b942d64034e | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-jan-23-me-835-story.html | A Divine View of Van Gogh | A Divine View of Van Gogh
He is commonly portrayed as a sometimes loony genius who failed in a fanatical quest to become an evangelical preacher, turned his back on religion and went on to become one of history’s most celebrated painters.
But Vincent van Gogh--whose landmark work is on display through May 16 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art--in fact remained deeply spiritual throughout his life even after rejecting the institutional church, scholars say. His religious passion was central in shaping both the images he drew and the artistic techniques he used.
Van Gogh’s spiritual philosophy, largely ignored in traditional art history circles, is now coming to light more than a century after the Dutch artist ended his colorful, tragic life in suicide. The research is unveiling new depths of character in this endlessly dissected artist, the complex theological culture that influenced him and the rich spiritual meaning in Van Gogh’s legendary images of starry nights, fields of wheat, sunflowers and stolid, humble peasants.
“Religion was the central, driving force in Van Gogh’s life,” said Kathleen Powers Erickson, author of the newly released “At Eternity’s Gate: The Spiritual Vision of Vincent van Gogh.”
“Realizing that really turns around your whole concept of who Van Gogh was and what his art is about.”
As a young man, Van Gogh burned with religious fervor and won his first appointment to preach to poor coal miners in the Belgian town of Borinage in January 1879. In what many secular biographies have termed his era of “religious fanaticism,” Van Gogh determinedly sought a life of acute asceticism. The goal, he told one acquaintance, was to be “a friend of the poor like Jesus was.”
He gave away his money and clothes, refused the lodgings of a miner family and slept crouched in the hearth of a bare hovel. He even refused the luxury of soap; his contemporaries recalled a shirtless, soot-faced, emaciated Van Gogh tending his flock with an intense ardor, Erickson’s book recounts.
Despite his fervor and popularity with miners, the ecumenical Protestant organization that gave him the six-month appointment declined to renew it, citing Van Gogh’s lack of eloquence in the pulpit.
A Crisis of Faith
The crushed Van Gogh was further devastated when his own father withdrew support for his pastoral ambitions and, disturbed by what he viewed as his son’s excesses, sought to commit him to an insane asylum. In addition, his beloved Uncle Stricker, another staunch religious influence, rejected Van Gogh’s repeated attempts to woo his daughter, Kee.
The triple betrayal permanently alienated Van Gogh from institutional religion; he never set foot in a church again and took pains to express his bitterness in such works as “Starry Night,” where all village buildings glow with yellow light except the dark steepled church, Erickson said.
At this point, most biographers claim Van Gogh abandoned religion, but a new generation of scholars now say he retained his spiritual passion and only rechanneled it into art. He subscribed to French playwright Victor Hugo’s maxim, “Religions pass, but God remains,” scholars say.
Van Gogh sought to “find a way, through art, of teaching spiritual truths to people so as to console them,” said Naomi Margolis Maurer, the Minneapolis-based author of “The Pursuit of Spiritual Wisdom: The Thought and Art of Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gaugin.”
“He believed in a religion that teaches people to have reverence and awe of creation, and to have compassion and feelings of charity and sympathy toward people suffering. It was totally noninstitutional,” said Maurer, who will give a lecture on Van Gogh’s spiritual vision Feb. 14 at LACMA.
Among more than 2,300 Van Gogh works, only a handful depict classic religious scenes: “The Pieta,” portraying the suffering Christ, is one included in the Los Angeles exhibit. He deliberately avoided such subjects, scholars say, preferring to express the divine as reflected in nature or in the soulful eyes of the peasants, miners and prostitutes in his life.
Van Gogh painted olive groves to represent Christ and sunflowers as symbols of the pious soul who, like the flower, follows God’s blinding light, Erickson and others say. His sheaves of wheat, which crumble into the earth to regenerate life, represented the timeless cycle of death and rebirth. In one 1888 letter to his close artist friend, Emile Bernard, Van Gogh confessed “a longing for the Infinite, of which the sower and the sheaf are the symbols still enchanting me.”
Butterflies symbolized spiritual transformation and immortality to the artist, who speculated in his writings about life after death and the possibility of being reborn on other stars.
The radiant yellows he used to color his sun, stars and wheat fields were symbols of God’s love; while the deep blues evident in the masterpiece “Starry Night” represented the infinite, Erickson says he wrote in his letters.
Strokes of Genius
And beyond the symbols, Van Gogh expressed his religious beliefs in his artistic techniques, highly texturizing his paintings to mirror the plowing, weaving and other work of the peasants he so admired as true pilgrims of God, said Debora Silverman, UCLA professor of history and art history.
The zeal to plow and work his canvas like a farmer in the field stemmed from Van Gogh’s attempt to reconcile his status as an indigent painter--he sold only one work in his lifetime--with his religious belief in active work as the source of grace, Silverman said.
Van Gogh’s melding of art and spirituality reflected the traditions of a family of both art dealers and religious thinkers. His grandfather, father and uncle were all ministers. They were influenced by two trends within the Dutch Reformed Church. One rejected the Calvinist view of original sin, salvation for a select few and predestination in favor of a belief in humankind’s godlike nature, universal salvation and free will, Erickson said.
The other trend rejected miracles and supernatural events and sought instead to seek the divine more realistically in nature and community through painting, poetry and other forms of art. Later, the naturalistic tendencies of Zen Buddhism, which reached Europe late in the 19th century, added their influence to Van Gogh’s thinking.
Among the works included in the L.A. exhibit, two notably capture Van Gogh’s spiritual vision, scholars say.
“The Potato Eaters,” a grimy portrayal of dusty peasants sharing a meal in their dank hovel, is typically described as simply a portrayal of the working class. But Silverman and others say the work includes powerful religious imagery: the poor peasants as spiritually superior servants of God who win grace through honest work; the meal as a sacred Eucharistic celebration, the glowing yellow of the overhead lamp illuminating the dark faces in the light of God.
“Wheatfield With Crows” is one of Van Gogh’s most analyzed works. Where some see doom and signs of Van Gogh’s imminent 1890 suicide in the threatening skies, black crows and roads leading nowhere, Erickson says the artist’s views on death instead suggest a meaning of triumph and ultimate release.
The work’s deep blue skies of infinity, brilliant yellow wheat of rebirth and roads of pilgrimage suggest “not a painting of psychological deterioration, but a work depicting the journey of life, with the hope of ultimate rebirth,” Erickson wrote.
“You could almost say that everything he did was imbued with some kind of sacredness,” Erickson said.
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71603ddadd128b7767e87de343d7e793 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-jan-26-mn-1772-story.html | Robert Shaw; Dean of U.S. Choral Conductors | Robert Shaw; Dean of U.S. Choral Conductors
Robert Shaw, who represented the epitome of choral conducting for six decades and has been called the dean of American choral conducting, died Monday. He was 82.
Shaw, also known for his work with orchestras, died in a hospital in New Haven, Conn., after suffering a stroke Sunday night. Shaw had gone from his Atlanta home to New Haven to see “Endgame,” a play directed by his son Thomas as his senior project at Yale University.
Best known as conductor of his storied Robert Shaw Chorale, which performed around the world, Shaw also was music director and conductor of the Atlanta Symphony from 1967 to 1988. After retiring from the Atlanta Symphony, he became principal guest conductor of the San Diego Symphony and conducted annual choral workshops at New York’s Carnegie Hall.
In 1991, Shaw earned a Kennedy Center Honor, in 1992 he was awarded the National Medal of Arts and last year he was inducted into the American Classical Music Hall of Fame in Cincinnati.
He won 14 Grammy awards, and his latest album has been nominated for the 1999 Grammy for best classical album.
Shaw, a native of Red Bluff, Calif., earned critical attention and praise decades before those achievements.
“Robert Shaw is to choral singing what Toscanini is to orchestras--he’s a sort of a high priest to those who are convinced that his particular form of musical direction is the ultima Thule of artistry,” Times columnist Bill Henry wrote in 1947.
“The chances are that if choral singing continues its emergence from the wilderness of music sounds,” Henry concluded, “Pomona’s young Bob Shaw will be the Elijah who will lead the movement.”
The prediction proved accurate. Modestly, Shaw acknowledged in accepting the Kennedy award: “The fact that choral singing has a much higher place in classical music than it did 50 or 60 years ago, I think, is reflected in the Kennedy Center Honor. I’m not vain enough to think I did it. It’s recognition of an area of art.”
As early as 1943, Shaw was named “America’s greatest choral conductor” by the National Assn. of Composers and Conductors.
Shaw was the son and grandson of ministers, and his mother sang in her husband’s various church choirs. Their five children were all trained to play piano and sing in harmony.
As a religion and English student at Pomona College, Shaw conducted its glee club, and when he went to religious conferences or other youth meetings, he organized sing-alongs. After graduation in 1938, Shaw was asked by the radio conductor Fred Waring to organize and conduct the Fred Waring Glee Club.
Shaw remained with Waring until 1945. As a Times writer described his choral duties: “He warmed ‘em up, put ‘em through their paces, polished up the numbers and turned ‘em over to Waring fit and slick.”
The young Shaw, once referred to as “that miraculous young man who does wondrous things with choruses,” found time to direct the chorus for Broadway’s “Carmen Jones” and another for an ice show.
Shaw also organized his own Collegiate Chorale in New York in 1941 and led it until 1954. Awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, he taught choral conducting at the Tanglewood in Massachusetts and the Juilliard School of Music in New York.
Shaw also studied orchestral conducting, and in 1946 made his debut at the podium of the Naumburg Orchestra in New York.
The Robert Shaw Chorale was created in 1948 and was Shaw’s principal interest for 20 years until he joined the Atlanta Symphony. Shaw conducted concerts of the chorale in Russia and 15 other countries in Europe, as well as in the Middle East and South America. He selected contemporary composers to write scores for his group, among them Bela Bartok, Darius Milhaud and Aaron Copland.
In the mid-1950s, Shaw conducted summer concerts of the San Diego Symphony, and from 1956 until 1967 he served as associate conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra, understudying its leader, George Szell.
Former Times music critic Martin Bernheimer applauded the orchestral work, writing in 1966 on the eve of Shaw’s move to Atlanta: “It is worth noting that Shaw has become an all-purpose conductor first, and specifically a conductor of choruses second.”
Bernheimer, adding that Shaw could rightly have rested on his choral laurels, asked the maestro in 1966 if taking the cuts in prestige and pay to be Cleveland’s second banana had been tough.
“Who cares?” Shaw answered. “My whole life has been a series of self-effacements! When I left Fred Waring to form my own chorale they told me I was stepping backward. When I curtailed activities of the [Robert Shaw] Chorale, people sent condolences despite the fact that in Cleveland I was to lead over 70 concerts a year on my own.”
Even Szell, he added, had invited him to “cry on his shoulder” when he took the Atlanta job.
But Shaw transformed the fledgling Atlanta Symphony Orchestra from a part-time group of 60 amateurs with a $300,000 annual budget to a full-time, 93-member orchestra with a multimillion-dollar budget. He led it on tours across the country and conducted its Carnegie Hall debut in 1971 and its performance at Jimmy Carter’s presidential inauguration in 1977. A year after that, he introduced the Atlanta orchestra to his Pomona alma mater for a concert in the Claremont Colleges artist series at Bridges Music Auditorium.
From his youth, Shaw was known for his ability to assemble mostly volunteer singers (often from a variety of church or school choirs) and mold them, with only a couple of rehearsals, into a remarkable wall of modulated sound.
“I’ve often thought it was as difficult to be a professional about music as it would be to be a professional about sex,” Shaw told The Times with a laugh in 1991 while working with volunteer singers in San Diego. “It’s terribly important to retain that amateur spirit, because the root of ‘amateur’ means to love what you are doing.”
In addition to his work in San Diego, Shaw conducted frequently throughout Southern California. He was a popular guest at the Hollywood Bowl where, among other concerts, in 1976 he directed the bowl’s first performance of Hector Berlioz’s “Requiem” with the USC National Workshop Chorale and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He also was a frequent visitor at the podium of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion of the Los Angeles County Music Center, where he frequently served as guest conductor of the Los Angeles Master Chorale.
Shaw is survived by three children from his first marriage, Dr. Johanna Shaw, Peter and John; a son from his second marriage, Thomas; and a stepson, Alex Hitz.
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7b111c7db3beafe57ca3c570cc7faa70 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-jan-31-me-3606-story.html | Omigod, the Galleria Died | Omigod, the Galleria Died
We have a fascinating death in progress here. Soon, the Sherman Oaks Galleria will cease to exist as a mall. The owners have abandoned any hope of reviving it and will shut down the Galleria in a few months, commence a heavy renovation and convert the great hulk into an office center.
A big deal, this demise. We are witnessing the last, ragged breaths of the beast that created mall culture. Many other gallerias followed down the same path, of course, but they served as mere copies of the original, spreading the cultural seeds throughout the land. Only the Sherman Oaks Galleria provided the ooze from which grew the teenage subcultures of mall crawling, food court romancing and the like. Only the S.O. Galleria incubated the Valley Girl. And so on.
These days the term “mall culture” seems quaint. But in the early 1980s people paid attention. Anthropologists flew out to study the Galleria in the belief that something important was taking place. They positioned themselves at the Food Court or the bench outside the Gap, taking notes in the same way their predecessors studied natives in New Guinea.
And, of course, Hollywood made movies about it. “Valley Girl” and “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” both presented the Galleria as the dominant institution in the lives of their young characters. You could argue that Nicolas Cage and Sean Penn, who first won widespread attention in those movies, partially owe their careers to the Galleria.
In these movies, the mall functions like a parentless home to the kids. It offers a certain level of protection, a haven where the kids can, in effect, guide each other through the vagaries of teen life. In the mall, anything can happen. The sense of promise is everywhere.
“C’mon, Linda,” one teenage girl says in “Fast Times” to her best friend, pulling her into the Food Court. “You’re the one who told me I was going to get a boyfriend at the mall.” Then the two girls march into a sea of young people waiting, it seems, just for them.
These days, as with Machu Picchu, the Food Court sits largely abandoned. And the shopping corridors are worse. The Gap packed up and left long ago. Ditto Victoria’s Secret. And Sam Goody’s.
Customers have gone too. After a few minutes spent listening to your own footsteps on the marble floors, you can actually get spooked by the place. It feels like the site of a neutron bomb explosion, where the building and all its parts remain but the people have vanished.
On a tour last week, I walked into the Buccaneer Smoke Shop. Virtually alone on a corridor, its doors were open, and inside Harry Sahelian was holding out. Sahelian has operated his store in the mall for 10 years, he says, but soon he will also be leaving. And not returning.
“I am 73 years old,” he says. “All of my friends at the mall are gone. My wife, she says to me, ‘Enough, already.’ ”
What happened to the Galleria? The recited business dogma suggests the recession of the 1990s, bad architecture and an ugly fight between the mall owners and its anchor tenant, Robinsons-May.
All good enough reasons, no doubt, but they don’t really satisfy. As Daniel Rosenfeld, the former head of real estate operations for the city of Los Angeles, says, “The death of the Galleria suggests something profound and mysterious. No one can know for certain what killed it. Whatever the forces were, they were big.”
For his part, Rosenfeld believes that the demise just might be good news. “Malls were terribly destructive to city life,” he says. “They sucked people off the street and placed them in this synthetic, cold environment. They left you feeling disconnected from everyday life, an almost disembodied experience.
“So if the Sherman Oaks Galleria, one of the national icons of mall life, suddenly collapses and dies like some dinosaur, it leaves you hoping that the whole phenomenon of malls may be crumbling. What’s bad for malls is good for any city, and that’s especially true in Los Angeles.”
As it turns out, there’s plenty of evidence to support Rosenfeld’s theory. A half-dozen other malls around Los Angeles have similarly fallen on bad times, from Hawthorne to Pasadena to Palos Verdes. At the same time, old-fashioned street shopping has revived.
Take, for example, the extraordinary contrast between the throngs of customers in Old Pasadena and the deserted halls of the Pasadena mall only a few blocks away. Customers have voted with their feet, and they are walking away from malls.
A quick review of press reports around the country shows a similar trend. Some malls continue to thrive, but many others are close to joining the Galleria. The reports out of Atlanta, Richmond, Va., and Greensboro, N.C., tell the same story over and over again: Customers have withered away, leaving the malls looking like abandoned relics of another age.
If this trend continues in Los Angeles, it could suggest a historic turnaround. As Richard Longstreth recently wrote in his book “City Center to Regional Mall--Architecture, the Automobile and Retailing in Los Angeles, 1920-1950,” this city led the way in the creation of shopping centers after World War II. We demonstrated for other cities how their urban cores could be destroyed by devotion to the automobile and auto-dependent shopping.
So complete was the transfer of retail activity here that, by the 1980s, Los Angeles’ downtown was virtually devoid of the department stores, furniture stores and clothing stores that had been founded there. The suburban malls had taken over.
So now, if Los Angeles is turning away from that mode, we may be looking toward a brighter, more interesting future. The die is not yet cast but, as Rosenfeld says, the death of the Galleria most likely is good news.
Actually, the news may be good for the Galleria also. Douglas, Emmett & Co., the present owner, has developed a plan for remaking the Galleria that could establish it as a model for other failed malls. The company will attempt to transform the space so it houses a small community of business offices with attendant shops and restaurants.
City Councilman Mike Feuer, whose district includes the Galleria, believes the plan will work. “The old structure of the mall will be opened up, making it more inviting. And businesses badly need office space in the Valley. I think this plan is going to succeed for years to come.”
So maybe this is a story where everybody wins. We get a more interesting city, and the mall owners get a new life as promoters of office complexes.
Albeit, in the case of the Galleria, an office complex augmented by certain ghosts. Of the Tiffanys and Bryndas who found just the right shoes, of the Steves and Brets who scored at the multiplex. Of Ginger who met Brad at the Food Court, and so on.
A trippingdicular time, as they would say, however long ago. Let’s not forget.
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2f7f2a3225629a0e319c21f7a17b270e | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-jul-02-mn-52334-story.html | Sylvia Sidney; Veteran Movie Character Actress | Sylvia Sidney; Veteran Movie Character Actress
Sylvia Sidney, a durable character actress for seven decades who in her mid-80s appeared in the 1996 hit film “Mars Attacks!” died Thursday in New York.
Sidney died at Lennox Hill Hospital of throat cancer, said her Los Angeles agent, Ro Diamond. She was 88.
Over the last decade, Sidney continued to perform despite illness and injuries, including a broken hip, pneumonia and injuries from a car accident. She appeared in a new version of “Fantasy Island” that ran briefly on ABC TV last year.
“As long as I have got a brain and I can remember the lines and they pay me well, I will do it,” she told The Times in 1992.
Asked if she had fun that year working in the feature “Used People” with Shirley MacLaine, she said: “What’s fun about it? That’s my job. I act. I work.”
She was very good at her work. Sidney garnered her only Academy Award nomination for her supporting role as Joanne Woodward’s mother in the 1973 film “Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams.” The role was considered a comeback for Sidney, who had been absent from the movies since the mid-1950s.
Sidney was known by younger generations for her role as Juno, the grumpy social worker from the great beyond in the 1988 film “Beetlejuice.” She developed a deep affection for the film’s director, Tim Burton. Discussing Burton with The Times in 1992, she said: “I think he is one of the most extraordinary talents. I wish he would stop making crazy movies and really make something.”
A few years afterward, Burton specifically wrote the role of Grandma Norris for Sidney in “Mars Attacks!” When she was hospitalized after being hit by a car, he assured her that her role was secure even if he had to write in crutches or a wheelchair. She didn’t need either.
Born Sophia Kosow in the Bronx, N.Y., on Aug. 8, 1910, she obtained the surname Sidney when she was adopted by the dental surgeon her mother married after her parents divorced. She was shy as a child but was given elocution and dancing lessons from the age of 10 and began acting classes in high school.
She made a series of debuts at 16, first in “Prunella,” the graduation play of her theater guild high school, and quickly after that in “The Challenge of Youth” in Washington, and on Broadway in “The Squall,” all in 1926.
Sidney caught Hollywood’s attention in the Broadway drama “Bad Girl” in 1930 and was signed to a film contract by Paramount.
The young actress arrived in Los Angeles at the advent of the talkies and was cast in such early 1930s movies as “An American Tragedy,” “Street Scene,” “Ladies of the Big House,” “The Miracle Man,” “Pickup” and “Good Dame.”
Despite a leading role in the 1932 film version of “Madame Butterfly,” Sidney became typecast as Hollywood’s favorite poor working girl.
“I’d be the girl of the gangster . . . then the sister who was bringing up the gangster, then later, the mother of the gangster. And they always had me ironing somebody’s shirt,” she once recalled ruefully. “They used to pay me by the teardrop.”
To escape the image, the sandpaper-voiced actress returned to the stage, triumphing in Broadway’s 1939 production of “The Gentle People” and the 1941 thriller “Angel Street.”
As television developed, Sidney varied her stage appearances by working steadily in 1950s drama anthologies, including “Kraft Theater,” “Philco Playhouse” and “Playhouse 90.”
She was a popular guest on later television series such as “Route 66,” “My Three Sons,” “WKRP in Cincinnati,” “Magnum, P.I.” and “Thirtysomething.”
She became a favorite of directors of television movies and specials, including “Do Not Fold, Spindle or Mutilate,” with Helen Hayes and Mildred Natwick in 1971; “Raid on Entebbe” in 1977; “The Shadow Box,” directed by Paul Newman in 1980; and as Robert Preston’s senile wife in “Finnegan Begin Again” in 1985. That same year, she earned a Golden Globe Award and an Emmy nomination as the understanding grandmother of an AIDS-stricken lawyer in “An Early Frost.”
After her return to motion pictures in the early 1970s, Sidney distinguished herself in the role of a mental patient in the landmark 1977 film about schizophrenia, “I Never Promised You a Rose Garden.”
Sidney was also recognized for her needlepoint designs. She co-authored two books, “Sylvia Sidney’s Needlepoint Book” in 1968 and “The Sylvia Sidney Question and Answer Book on Needlepoint” in 1975.
She was married and divorced three times, to publisher and writer Bennett Cerf, actor Luther Adler and advertising executive Carlton Alsop. Her only child, Jacob Adler, died of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, in 1985 at the age of 40. Sidney served on the board of directors of the National Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Foundation.
She has no survivors. A memorial service is scheduled for Aug. 9 at the National Arts Club in New York.
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e57630a56f274787908374ac910d4b16 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-jul-03-fi-52483-story.html | Shandling and Ex-Manager Settle Suit | Shandling and Ex-Manager Settle Suit
One of Hollywood’s bitterest legal feuds ended Friday when comedian Garry Shandling’s conflict-of-interest lawsuit against his former manager and close friend, Brad Grey, was settled for undisclosed terms.
Shandling, who starred in the popular HBO series “The Larry Sanders Show,” sued Grey last year for $100 million, alleging that Grey improperly leveraged his relationship with Shandling to benefit his other business interests and clients.
Grey denied the allegations and countersued Shandling for $10 million, accusing the star of “The Larry Sanders Show” of “aberrant and irresponsible behavior.”
The lawsuit put a spotlight on the increasingly powerful and dual roles that managers play in Hollywood. Managers aren’t regulated as agents are and, unlike agents, are allowed to double as producers, as Grey did on “Larry Sanders.”
Many producers complain that managers further their careers by getting production credits simply because their clients are hired for a job. Managers argue that they provide numerous services for clients, package films and provide valuable career advice.
Grey heads Brillstein-Grey Entertainment, one of Hollywood’s leading talent management and production companies, with such shows as NBC’s “Just Shoot Me.” His business relationship with Shandling spanned some 18 years before it imploded amid the bitter allegations.
A joint statement said that the settlement would remain confidential, with Shandling and Grey each acquiring from the other “certain interests in various television programs.”
Grey said that he was pleased about the resolution and that he was “happy we could achieve it without the necessity of a trial.” Shandling was filming and had no comment.
Shandling is understood to have received some of Grey’s ownership in “Larry Sanders.” Grey is believed to have received some interests in other projects the two worked on over the years.
The settlement came a week after Superior Court Judge Ralph Dau denied a request from Columbia Pictures to postpone the trial so that Shandling could finish the film “What Planet Are You From?” A trial would have forced Columbia to work around Shandling’s trial schedule, at nights, on weekends and when the trial was in recess.
Sources close to Grey suggested that Columbia was instrumental in forcing a settlement and that the studio even contributed toward it.
But John Calley, head of Columbia parent Sony Pictures Entertainment, denied both suggestions.
“It’s absolutely untrue. We contributed nothing to the settlement,” he said.
Calley said that director Mike Nichols was willing to adapt to Shandling’s trial schedule, that the shooting schedule wouldn’t have been more expensive and that the main concern was whether Shandling would be drained after sitting through the trial each day.
Times staff writer Claudia Eller contributed to this story.
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c0e33804691ad0583a749f7d2d0a817a | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-jul-07-me-53709-story.html | Padilla Becomes L.A.'s Youngest Councilman | Padilla Becomes L.A.'s Youngest Councilman
In an emotional ceremony Tuesday, 26-year-old Alex Padilla became the youngest member of the Los Angeles City Council, taking the oath of office administered by 87-year-old former Councilman Ernani Bernardi.
A teary-eyed Padilla dedicated his first term to his parents, Santos and Lupe, immigrants from Mexico. He said that his mother became a U.S. citizen two days after his election, and three years after his father took the citizenship oath.
Padilla--who represents the northeast San Fernando Valley’s 7th Council District--told the more than 100 people who attended the ceremony in City Council chambers that his parents instilled in him an appreciation of democracy and service to others. He also vowed to work to get his district a bigger share of city services.
Padilla is the youngest current member of the City Council. But at least two others have served on the council at a younger age, including Rosalind Wyman, who was 22 when she was elected in 1953.
Attending the swearing in were 13 other City Council members and many Padilla supporters, including his former employer, state Assemblyman Tony Cardenas (D-Sylmar). Also in attendance were many young people who were attracted to Padilla’s campaign by the story of a kid from the Pacoima barrio who went on to get an engineering degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and return home to cut his political teeth.
Padilla delayed his swearing in ceremony until Tuesday so that a quirk in the city law would allow him to serve, if reelected, two full four-year terms, as well as the last two years remaining on the unexpired term vacated by former 7th District Councilman Richard Alarcon, who was elected to the state Senate.
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8ce70417771c091a1090dec4f2d364bd | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-jul-08-mn-53989-story.html | Clinton Visit Illuminates Depth of Poverty on Sioux Reservation | Clinton Visit Illuminates Depth of Poverty on Sioux Reservation
In the heart of the Badlands Wednesday, President Clinton encountered some of the worst of American poverty.
Clinton was the first incumbent president to visit Indian tribal lands since Franklin D. Roosevelt made a quick stop at a Cherokee reservation in North Carolina in 1936, the White House said. Clinton spent 3 1/2 hours at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, site of what Housing Secretary Andrew Cuomo called “probably the most extreme case of poverty” in the country.
What he encountered were grim statistics and anger about unkept promises.
The White House presented the day as a “nation-to-nation” visit, in which the president of the United States met the president of the Oglala Lakota nation. Sensitive to Native American feelings, Clinton spoke a word or two in the Sioux language during a speech, his attempt so appreciated that members of the audience cheered even when he announced he was about to try.
But some of his hosts remained skeptical--and angry that Native Americans, so long in the background of American life, were again being used as a backdrop, this time for a president’s poverty tour.
“There have been generations of broken promises,” said Butch Denny, president of the Santee Sioux Tribe in neighboring Nebraska. “It’s hard to get me hook, line and sinker.”
Clinton was greeted by Harold Salway, president of the Oglala Lakota nation. The tribal leader wore a brilliant bonnet of red, black, white and yellow feathers, and a business suit as he introduced Clinton.
During the visit, the president sat with a tearful Geraldine Blue Bird on her front porch and heard how she lives. She buys school shoes for her children on a layaway plan. She shares a home and the trailer next to it--with a total of five bedrooms--with 27 members of her extended family. She keeps the heat turned off in the bitter winter of the Great Plains because it costs $50 to bring a propane truck to her neighborhood. She occasionally sells tacos and takes the meager profits to a neighborhood store to put more money down on the basics she needs but can never quite afford.
Clinton responded by telling Blue Bird: “I sit around in Washington and try to imagine how in the world they make ends meet when nobody has a job.”
“It would really mean a lot to everybody,” the 44-year-old Blue Bird said, “if we could get jobs.”
Pine Ridge was the fourth stop on a presidential cross-country tour of impoverished communities left behind during the economic expansion that began nearly seven years ago.
The Shannon County, S.D., reservation, home to 38,000 people, is a portrait of poverty. The median income of about $17,000 annually is about $20,000 below the national average, and 46.7% of the county’s population lives in poverty. According to a Harvard University study, life expectancy here is 45, lower than that of any group in the United States. Nationwide, the unemployment rate has been below 5% for two years. Here, it is 73%, a figure Clinton declared “appalling.”
There are no banks within the borders of the 2.3 million-acre reservation, and no public transportation. Only one industry, which makes uniforms, employs more than a few people in Pine Ridge Village, the White House said.
For Clinton, the visit offered a carefully crafted opportunity to spotlight government programs intended to begin to tackle the poverty that has grown since Native Americans were offered refuge on reservations more than 100 years ago.
“I have seen today not only poverty but promise,” the president said in his speech to several thousand residents on the campus of Pine Ridge High School, 20 years on a construction list but completed only three years ago.
Clinton also came with some assistance: a $1.5-billion expansion of government housing loans in Native American communities, a $650-million investment plan to finance housing for 7,500 families in South Dakota, an “empowerment zone,” granting tax incentives to investors in Pine Ridge, and a pledge of $3 million from the Federal National Mortgage Assn., the quasi-government housing loan agency. In detailing these plans, he pointedly noted: “You have all heard years of pretty words.”
But Milo Yellow Hair, the tribe’s land director and former tribal vice president, told a reporter he is dubious. “We hope it’s more than promises. We’ve had plenty of those. We want something to take home to our children and say, ‘There is hope in America.”’
Clinton’s proposal “makes sense for middle-class America,” Yellow Hair said. But, he added, it may not work to encourage long-range outside investment in communities where there is no established system to distribute products, where the nearest interstate highway is 100 miles to the south (Clinton arrived by Marine Corps helicopter) and where the federal government owns nearly all the surrounding land as far as the eye can see and beyond.
Yellow Hair was also disappointed that Clinton had stayed less than four hours.
“We wanted the opportunity to showcase the cultural depth of our nation,” he said. “It’s cramming 2,000 years of history into 10 minutes. We are a culturally viable people, with our language and government. That should have been respected, rather than White House protocol.”
What is needed, he said, is nothing less than “a fundamental reassessment of how the federal government deals with Indian tribes in America.”
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362de3531f8ba5ca7c40baafaa3bfeec | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-jul-14-mn-55835-story.html | Aaron Soffer Lapin; Founded Reddi-Wip Inc. | Aaron Soffer Lapin; Founded Reddi-Wip Inc.
Aaron Soffer Lapin, the founder and first president of Reddi-Wip Inc. who pioneered the concept of aerosol packaging of whipped cream, has died. He was 85.
Lapin, nicknamed “Bunny,” died Monday in Los Angeles. He maintained homes here, in New York City and in Miami.
In December, Lapin earned an honorable mention as one of Time magazine’s Business Geniuses of the Century for his now-ubiquitous creation.
Lapin later set up and headed Clayton Corp. to manufacture valves for his whipped-cream enterprise. Although Reddi-Wip became a familiar brand name, the valve business provided more opportunities for expansion.
Epicures may eschew Reddi-Wip and its imitators in favor of hand-whipped heavy cream and sugar for their strawberries, but Lapin personally maintained a lifelong pride in his invention. Food & Wine magazine reported in 1996 that he liked the aerosol whipped topping so much he even “dreamed of aerosol catsup and mustard.”
Lapin established Reddi-Wip in St. Louis in 1946, but eight years later moved the enterprise to Los Angeles when he created his valve company.
Clayton Corp. and its subsidiaries make industrial valves and closures and foamed plastic products such as insulation and cushioning materials. As chairman of the board, Lapin traveled frequently to Europe to conduct the company’s export transactions.
Born in St. Louis, Lapin was educated at the University of Missouri and attended Washington University Law School.
He is survived by his son, Byron, of St. Louis; daughter, Linda Levine, of Los Angeles; two brothers, Zeverly of Beverly Hills and Gene of St. Louis; and one granddaughter.
Services are scheduled today at 11 a.m. at Hillside Memorial Chapel, 6001 Centinela Ave., Culver City.
The family has asked that any memorial donations be made to the Paget Foundation, 120 Wall St. #1602, New York, NY 10005.
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81817b868a646b35d23d08639e2193d3 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-jul-16-me-56492-story.html | Moon Launch Was Man’s Shining Hour | Moon Launch Was Man’s Shining Hour
“No matter what discomforts and expenses you had to bear to come here,” said a NASA guide to a group of guests at the conclusion of a tour of the Space Center on Cape Kennedy on July 15, 1969, “there will be seven minutes tomorrow morning that will make you feel it was worth it.”
It was.
[The launch] began with a large patch of bright yellow-orange flame shooting sideways from under the base of the rocket. It looked like a normal kind of flame, and I felt an instant’s shock of anxiety, as if this were a building on fire. In the next instant the flame and the rocket were hidden by such a sweep of dark red fire that the anxiety vanished. This was not part of any normal experience and could not be integrated with anything.
The dark red fire parted into two gigantic wings, as if a hydrant were shooting streams of fire outward and up, toward the zenith, and between the two wings, against a pitch-black sky, the rocket rose slowly, so slowly that it seemed to hang still in the air, a pale cylinder with a blinding oval of white light at the bottom, like an upturned candle with its flame directed at the Earth.
Then I became aware that this was happening in total silence, because I heard the cries of birds winging frantically away from the flames. The rocket was rising faster, slanting a little, its tense white flame leaving a long, thin spiral of bluish smoke behind it. It had risen into the open blue sky, and the dark red fire had turned into enormous billows of brown smoke, when the sound reached us. It was a long, violent crack, not a rolling sound, but specifically a cracking, grinding sound, as if space were breaking apart, but it seemed irrelevant and unimportant, because it was a sound from the past and the rocket was long since speeding safely out of its reach--though it was strange to realize that only a few seconds had passed.
I found myself waving to the rocket involuntarily, I heard people applauding and joined them, grasping our common motive; it was impossible to watch passively, one had to express, by some physical action, a feeling that was not triumph, but more the feeling that that white object’s unobstructed streak of motion was the only thing that mattered in the universe.
What we had seen, in naked essentials--but in reality, not in a work of art--was the concretized abstraction of man’s greatness.
The fundamental significance of Apollo 11’s triumph is not political; it is philosophical; specifically, moral-epistemological.
The meaning of the sight lay in the fact that when those dark red wings of fire flared open, one knew that one was not looking at a normal occurrence but at a cataclysm which, if unleashed by nature, would have wiped man out of existence--and one knew also that this cataclysm was planned, unleashed and controlled by man, that this unimaginable power was ruled by his power and, obediently serving his purpose, was making way for a slender, rising craft.
One knew that this spectacle was not the product of inanimate nature, like some aurora borealis, or of chance, or of luck, that it was unmistakably human--with “human,” for once, meaning grandeur--that a purpose and a long, sustained, disciplined effort had gone to achieve this series of moments, and that man was succeeding, succeeding, succeeding! For once, if only for seven minutes, the worst among those who saw it had to feel--not “How small is man by the side of the Grand Canyon!"--but “How great is man and how safe is nature when he conquers it!”
That we had seen a demonstration of man at his best, no one could doubt--this was the cause of the event’s attraction and of the stunned numbed state in which it left us. And no one could doubt that we had seen an achievement of man in his capacity as a rational being--an achievement of reason, of logic, of mathematics, of total dedication to the absolutism of reality.
Frustration is the leitmotif in the lives of most men, particularly today--the frustration of inarticulate desires, with no knowledge of the means to achieve them. In the sight and hearing of a crumbling world, Apollo 11 enacted the story of an audacious purpose, its execution, its triumph and the means that achieved it--the story and the demonstration of man’s highest potential.
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dbe7ded59ab839fac5b53b8e6efa222a | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-jul-24-mn-59126-story.html | Frank M. Johnson Jr.; U.S. Judge Issued Key Civil Rights Rulings | Frank M. Johnson Jr.; U.S. Judge Issued Key Civil Rights Rulings
Frank M. Johnson Jr., a federal judge whose precedent-setting rulings brought down racial barriers across the South, died Friday of pneumonia. He was 80.
Johnson, who became a hero of the civil rights movement and a target of then-Gov. George C. Wallace, spent nearly 25 years on the U.S. District Court bench in Alabama after his appointment by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in November, 1955.
His first big case came three months later in a class-action lawsuit involving Rosa Parks, the black seamstress who had been arrested for failing to give up her seat on a Montgomery city bus. Citing the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1954 school desegregation decision, Johnson and another member of the three-judge panel ruled that the local bus segregation ordinance violated the “due process and equal protection” clauses of the 14th Amendment.
It was the first time the high court’s decision had been applied in a non-school case, and it cleared the way for the eventual desegregation of all public facilities in the South.
For Johnson, it was the first of many historic decisions. In 1961, he noted that Macon County officials had ignored state literacy requirements in registering whites to vote but had enforced them with blacks. He ruled that the least restrictive qualifications for whites would be the standard for blacks as well. That ruling was incorporated into the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
Two years later, Johnson signed the original order to integrate every school in Alabama, including the University of Alabama, which precipitated Wallace’s famous the stand in the schoolhouse door.
In one of the most dramatic orders of his career, Johnson threw out Wallace’s ban on a voting rights march led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. from Selma to Montgomery. The governor had cited public safety concerns. Johnson wrote:
“It seems basic to our constitutional principles that the extent of the right to assemble, demonstrate and march peaceably along the highways and streets in an orderly manner should be commensurate with the enormity of the wrongs that are being protested and petitioned against,” Johnson said, “In this case, the wrongs are enormous. The extent of the right to demonstrate against these wrongs should be determined accordingly.”
Before issuing the order, the judge had received assurances from President Lyndon B. Johnson that it would be enforced.
Many observers noted later that Judge Johnson’s decision to allow the march was key to the passage of national voting rights legislation.
It also was Johnson who presided over the trial of three Ku Klux Klansmen accused of violating the civil rights of slain civil rights worker Viola Liuzzo. Despite overwhelming evidence, an all-white jury had acquitted the three men of killing Liuzzo.
When the jurors in the civil rights case tried to declare themselves deadlocked, Johnson ordered them to continue.
With rarely used legal tactics, he continued to press the jurors until they returned a verdict. Each defendant received a maximum 10-year sentence.
Although he received accolades from progressive groups, Johnson insisted throughout his career that he was simply following the law and was hardly a liberal. In one case, he refused to overturn the Alabama Legislature’s gerrymandering of the predominantly black city of Tuskegee, which precluded all but four black families from voting, by citing a previous Supreme Court decision that said “modification of a municipality is the prerogative of the state alone.” When the high court later altered that ruling, Johnson changed his ruling as well.
During the height of the civil rights movement, he also showed firm resolve despite the violence of the times. A cross was once burned on his lawn. His mother’s house, mistaken for his, was bombed. After a series of death threats, he received round-the-clock protection from federal marshals.
“He stood steady in the fiercest of political storms when he believed he was right,” Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman said Friday. “He helped shape the course of this state and this country through his staunch defense of the rule of law. His loss will be felt by many.”
Frank Minis Johnson Jr. was born in Haleyvilla, Ala., the oldest of seven children. His father was a farmer and high school teacher who also served as a postmaster and a probate judge. During the early 1940s, he was the only Republican member of the state Legislature.
Johnson’s attitudes were forged by the rigors of farm life, his mother’s firm discipline and the independent history of his community, which, during the Civil War, had attempted to secede from Alabama.
He attended military school in Mississippi before graduating near the top of his law class at the University of Alabama. One of his law school classmates was Wallace, who would later fuel his rise to the governor’s office with verbal attacks on Johnson.
During World War II, Johnson rose to the rank of captain in the Army and was wounded in the Normandy invasion. He returned to Alabama after the war and started a law firm, where he earned a reputation as an excellent criminal defense attorney.
In 1952, he worked for the election of Eisenhower, who later appointed him U.S. attorney for Alabama’s northern district. In 1955, he was named to the federal bench.
Johnson was a stern figure in the courtroom, and his authority there was seldom questioned. Until he was ordered to do so by a higher court, he never wore a robe or used a gavel, explaining that a judge who needs such trappings “hasn’t established control.” He spoke slowly with a gravelly drawl and could inspire fear in lawyers when he looked down from the bench, peering over steel-rimmed glasses and issuing firm instructions.
In the early 1970s, Johnson ruled that Alabama’s state mental hospitals were “human warehouses.” He issued far-reaching orders establishing the right of patients to receive adequate care and detailing how Alabama had to improve conditions for them.
Similarly, he found Alabama’s prisons “barbaric” and ordered a sweeping overhaul.
When Wallace accused him of trying to create a hotel atmosphere in the state’s prisons, Johnson responded: “The elimination of conditions that will permit maggots in a patient’s wounds for over a month before his death does not constitute the creation of a hotel atmosphere.”
Later, Johnson became known to many as “the real governor of Alabama” and often was considered for higher federal office. In 1969, he was the choice of John N. Mitchel, Richard Nixon’s attorney general, to replace Abe Fortas on the Supreme Court. But his nomination was blocked by Southern Republicans who were angry with his civil rights stands.
In 1977, President Jimmy Carter nominated him to be FBI director, but the day after his nomination, Johnson’s doctor found an aortic aneurysm. Johnson underwent surgery to repair the condition and his doctor predicted a full recovery. But several months later, he had a relapse and asked Carter to withdraw the nomination.
After returning to health, he resumed his seat on the bench and continued to deliver precedent-setting rulings.
In one, he ordered Alabama State University, the state’s oldest and largest traditionally black college, to stop “it’s practice of discrimination against whites” in hiring faculty and staff. It was the first time that a federal court had found that a black institution discriminated against whites.
In 1979, he was named to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which later became the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, where he finished his judicial career.
“In my opinion, he will go down as the greatest federal judge in the history of our country,” said U.S. Circuit Judge Joel Dubina, who had known Johnson since 1973. “He was a great, great man.”
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3164ff6184559de0b050a5d242e1531a | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-jul-26-ca-59643-story.html | Worlds of Wayne : ‘Utopia Parkway’ CD Is a Meditation on an East Coast Street--but It’s Not Far From Here | Worlds of Wayne : ‘Utopia Parkway’ CD Is a Meditation on an East Coast Street--but It’s Not Far From Here
Utopia Parkway is 3,000 miles from here, but even if you’ve never left Southern California, you know it well.
That’s the impression one gets from listening to “Utopia Parkway,” the new album by the sharp New York/New England pop-rock band Fountains of Wayne.
The album, and its keynote song, take their name from a street in Queens, the New York City borough that’s part of Long Island, which is definitive of the vast stretch of housing tracts and shopping malls with no central city core that encircle New York City. Sound familiar? Orange County, and most of the Los Angeles area, is Long Island West, or vice versa.
That sense of recognition isn’t deterred at all by the highly specific New York metro area milieu that serves as a backdrop for songwriters Chris Collingwood and Adam Schlesinger as they sketch, with no small measure of irony, the lives of various suburban types. There’s the naive club rocker with big dreams in “Utopia Parkway,” the guy in “Red Dragon Tattoo” who thinks he can impress an indifferent woman with the right body art (“Now I look a little more like that guy from Korn,” he sings), the thrill-seeking kids who get their kicks at a planetarium “Laser Show,” the manic consumers of “The Valley of Malls,” and the commuter facing a day of drudgery in “Sick Day,” a prime track from the band’s self-titled debut album from 1996.
In “It Must Be Summer,” a climactic and typically catchy song from “Utopia Parkway,” a guy searches all over the New York metropolitan area for an elusive girlfriend who has given him the slip.
“I think almost every person who lives on Utopia Parkway has e-mailed me,” said Collingwood, 31, who first teamed with Schlesinger when they were teenage undergrads at Williams College in Massachusetts. But the idea wasn’t just to flatter pure-pop fans from New York and environs, he said.
The Fountains of Wayne duo wanted to emulate the method behind one of the great bodies of pop-rock songwriting--Ray Davies’ sublime work with the Kinks from 1966 to 1971, in which the albums “Face to Face,” “Something Else,” “The Village Green Preservation Society,” “Arthur” and “Muswell Hillbillies” were in part a cumulative sketch of the suburban north London community where Davies and his bandmates grew up.
“Hopefully, [‘Utopia Parkway’] has this sense of place in the way that old Kinks records do,” Collingwood said. “They were singing about little towns in England, and it had a magic to it.” Collingwood hopes the details in Fountains of Wayne songs will prod listeners to use their imaginations to conjure up the characters and settings moving through the songs, even if they wouldn’t know Utopia Parkway from Harbor Boulevard.
Fountains of Wayne arrives on Harbor Boulevard tonight, headlining the Galaxy in Santa Ana. The band--with Collingwood on guitar and lead vocals, Schlesinger on bass and harmony singing, plus guitarist Jody Porter and former Posies drummer Brian Young--brings along one of the odder histories of any recent-vintage rock band.
After college, Collingwood moved to Boston and worked as a computer programmer for a bank. Schlesinger landed in New York City and formed the band Ivy. Collingwood tired of the bank routine and moved to New York, and the two teamed up for some informal songwriting and recording. That turned into a major-label deal with Atlantic--the same label that had signed Ivy.
What’s more, just as the “Fountains of Wayne” release emerged in ’96, so did the film “That Thing You Do!,” featuring a catchy, spirit-of-'65 title song that Schlesinger wrote after director Tom Hanks put out word that he needed a period piece to serve as the signature pop confection of the film’s fictional one-hit-wonder band, the Wonders. The track was featured almost incessantly in the film, and received a best-song nomination for an Oscar.
Fountains of Wayne steadfastly refuse to play it. “We’ve been saddled with it,” Collingwood said. “People shout for it and stuff, and I do my best to ignore them. It really has nothing to do with our band. It got us a lot of attention we wouldn’t have gotten, but it created a lot of misconceptions"--including one that the band must be Schlesinger’s vehicle, rather than an equal partnership.
As for Schlesinger’s dual citizenship in two major-label bands (Ivy has since switched to Epic), Collingwood said it thus far hasn’t hampered Fountains of Wayne.
“I don’t know how he does it, actually. I’m exhausted enough being in one band. When I’m home sleeping and recovering [after a tour], he’s recording with Ivy. He has what you’d call a classic Type-A personality.”
As he spoke from a San Francisco hotel room, Collingwood gave a running narrative on the progress of that day’s Maury Povich show, from a cello-playing 9-year-old dwarf to another 9-year-old with “big-jaw disease” and a third with no legs.
“That guy’s a moron. I’ll turn him off. The worst thing about it is it’s thrown into this heroic context: ‘Look how brave these people are who have overcome their disabilities.’ But it’s just exploitation.”
The pop equivalent of Maury Povich might be the novelty song--a way of drawing a crowd while appealing to the common human enjoyment of being titillated or lightly amused. When the subject of Barenaked Ladies came up--its ascension as a pure-pop band selling millions of records with an approach not unlike Fountains of Wayne’s--Collingwood scoffed. “Nobody would have given them the time of day if they didn’t have a big, dumb novelty hit [‘One Week’]. I’d rather be unsuccessful and good than successful and bad.”
Fountains of Wayne--named after a novelty store in Wayne, N.J., in the area where Schlesinger grew up--almost got sucked involuntarily into novelty’s vortex, Collingwood said, when it covered Britney Spears’ teen-pop dance hit, ". . . Baby One More Time,” intending it as an extra track on their current single, “Denise.”
“We kind of gave it a Beatles treatment. We did it because we liked the song, not because we wanted to have a big, dumb novelty hit. The clear message we got [from executives at Atlantic] was ‘If you put this as the third track on the single, we’re going to treat it as the single.’ So we pulled it off.”
Collingwood, whose reedy voice can recall the likes of Freedy Johnston, Paul Simon, Graham Nash and even Gilbert O’Sullivan, says he isn’t even a rock ‘n’ roll hero in his own household. “Barbara H.,” a song from the band’s first album, is based on his wife’s indifference to rock music, including his own. Schlesinger’s wife is the same way, Collingwood said, and neither musician minds.
“I love her anyway. There’s more to life than pop music. But we’ve both had the same conversation with our wives: I was sitting in my studio at home [in Northampton, Mass.], listening to music. She says, ‘When you’re listening to music you’re not doing anything else but listening to it.’ It’s incomprehensible [to her] that you would just listen and concentrate on a song. I wonder how many people are like that?
“I think that’s why the radio is so terrible, because nobody cares,” he added. “These days all the airwaves are packed with macho stuff. Americans in particular, more than anywhere else you play, want to have a singer who had a tortured childhood and is baring his soul for everybody. The format-driven bands that get on the radio today have the angry baritone. I wish there was room for tenors now, the high, cherubic voices I grew up with. I can listen to the schmaltziest, cheesiest song by Bryan Adams, just to listen to his voice. The same with Mariah Carey. She sends chills up my spine, even though it’s just bubble gum.”
* Fountains of Wayne, Peoplemover and Owsley play tonight at the Galaxy Concert Theatre, 3503 S. Harbor Blvd., Santa Ana. 8 p.m. $13.50-$15.50. (714) 957-0600.
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3d633307b46cd7fb26a27ff4feed43ff | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-jul-28-mn-60260-story.html | House OKs Extension of China Trade Ties | House OKs Extension of China Trade Ties
The House on Tuesday approved a one-year extension of normal trade relations with China, despite recent concerns about the nation’s alleged theft of U.S. nuclear secrets and continuing disapproval of Beijing’s human rights policies.
The 260-170 rejection of an effort to sever normal trade relations with China reaffirmed the political support in Congress for engagement with the world’s most populous nation. The vote crossed party lines, with 98 Democrats and 71 Republicans voting to revoke normal trade status. The one independent in the House also voted to revoke it.
Business groups, which lobbied energetically for the strongest possible support of normal trade relations with China, hope that the vote will spur the resumption of negotiations between Washington and Beijing on China’s entry into the World Trade Organization, leading to the permanent normalization of trade between the two nations.
“A strong vote is a mandate to move forward in the trade negotiations,” said Myron Brilliant, a lobbyist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which estimates that 200,000 U.S. jobs and $18 billion in exports depend on trade with China.
President Clinton applauded the action. “Expanding trade can help bring greater social change to China by spreading the tools, contacts and ideas that promote freedom,” the president said.
Supporters of normal trade ties argue that China’s buying power will grow tremendously in the coming years and that the competitiveness of American businesses--from high-tech firms to agricultural concerns--depends on their access to that burgeoning market.
They also argue that engagement on trade and in other areas is the best way to influence China to allow more personal freedoms to its people and to deter Beijing from participating in the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
“Over the next 20 or 30 years, China will become one of the most dangerous players in the world if we begin to try to isolate them,” said Rep. Robert T. Matsui (D-Sacramento).
The annual extension of China’s normal trade status, previously known as most-favored-nation status, has become a rite of summer in Congress in recent years.
Although the outcome was predictable, legislators again used the debate to denounce Beijing for everything from espionage against the U.S. to repressing China’s people for their religious beliefs.
“Why are we rewarding China for its spying?” said Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.).
In May, a congressional committee released a report accusing China of covertly using a vast network of spies to steal U.S. nuclear secrets and military technology.
Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach), the chief author of the report, called the annual vote on trade Congress’ way of “whitewashing human rights abuses.”
In the early 1990s, China typically released some political prisoners on the eve of the vote, but this year the vote coincides with a crackdown on Falun Gong, a meditation and exercise sect that has been banned by the Chinese government.
Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.) compared engaging in trade with China to trading with Nazi Germany. “They are the evil empire,” he said.
Wolf noted China’s practice of forced abortions to control population and posed the question of why his colleagues who oppose abortion do not routinely oppose normal trade status.
Opponents of trade liberalization said that on the issue of trade too, the U.S. gets a raw deal with China. The trade deficit with Beijing is projected at $70 billion this year.
By contrast, supporters of the measure argued that NATO’s mistaken bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade during the war against Yugoslavia, heightened tensions between Taiwan and China, concern about espionage and the recent repression of Chinese civilians for practicing their beliefs are all reasons to maintain positive ties with Beijing.
“The relationship between China and the United States is very fragile now--perhaps more fragile than ever,” said Rep. Bill Archer (R-Texas), chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, which has jurisdiction over the measure. “We should certainly not take steps that would cause relations to deteriorate even further.”
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47bddc73ed113ea309a8a9742e52f26a | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-jul-29-mn-60699-story.html | Final $1.2 Million Added to Thai Workers’ Settlement | Final $1.2 Million Added to Thai Workers’ Settlement
At night, Rojana Cheunchujit slept on a dirty floor with seven other women, among the mice and the cockroaches.
Days were no better. She was paid a pittance for 16 hours of sewing. Trapped by guards and barbed wire, Cheunchujit had little choice or hope of escape.
Authorities eventually freed her and 70 other Thai workers, nearly all women, from years of virtual slavery in an El Monte garment factory.
As the group prepares to celebrate the fourth anniversary of their freedom Aug. 2, their attorneys today will announce a $1.2-million settlement with the last of the clothing firms that hired the factory.
With the final settlement, the workers will have received $10,000 to $80,000 each, depending on how long they worked--some as long as seven years.
Some have used the money to attend school, put a down payment on a house or start saving for their children’s education. Others have sent the money home to relatives in rural Thai villages.
The settlements alone have not bought them the life they had hoped for in America. They also had to figure out how to use a telephone, read road signs and, beginning with the alphabet, learn English.
Most still work making clothes, sewing six days a week. One has become a nurse. Another is getting a beautician’s license. They have had 15 weddings and 13 babies.
Through the lengthy process of suing their former bosses, as well as more than half a dozen manufacturers and retailers, they also have learned how laws protect even the most powerless. The El Monte operators were sent to federal prison, and the workers fought to collect years of back pay.
“Their story is an American story,” said Stewart Kwoh, president of the Asian Pacific American Legal Center, which filed lawsuits on behalf of the workers and negotiated the settlements, believed to be the largest ever won by sweatshop workers.
“Within the first year of their freedom, they were saying, ‘We’re engaged in this lawsuit and struggle not to punish anybody but to teach corporations that we’re human beings and to ensure that this doesn’t happen again to anybody else,’ ” Kwoh said.
Seven of their Thai captors eventually pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy, requiring indentured servitude and harboring illegal immigrants. As part of their plea, the operators acknowledged running their El Monte garment factory from 1989 to 1995 with a captive work force. Two others are fugitives, believed to be in Thailand.
For Cheunchujit and the other Thai workers, the journey from El Monte has been one of transformation. They have become activists, participating in workers rallies, and joined a coalition with Latino colleagues.
Today’s announcement of the $1.2-million settlement with Tomato Inc., the company for which they did the most work, brings their total settlement to more than $4 million. The exact amount cannot be divulged under the agreement, lawyers said. Twenty-two Latino workers also received part of the wage settlements, although they were not held against their will.
The court fight is over, but the Thai workers--mostly in their 20s and 30s--still meet once a month with their attorney, Julie A. Su of the legal center. “We’re like a big family,” Su said.
They feel a sense of belonging to one another and, increasingly, to their new country.
Perhaps none has been transformed as dramatically as Cheunchujit, who has emerged as the leader. The 28-year-old former seamstress is living a life “I could never even have imagined,” she said.
She met her future husband, USC associate professor Steve Sussman, while asking for directions in a supermarket parking lot. She now lives in Pasadena, studying to become a fashion designer.
She says her dream is to have her own clothing factory--one that pays workers well, provides health benefits and a recreation room, and respects the 40-hour workweek. She also wants a reputation for making quality clothing.
Hers is more than just a Cinderella story. Because her English is better than that of others in the group, Cheunchujit feels duty-bound to speak for them.
Earlier this year, Cheunchujit testified before a state Assembly committee, urging the panel to approve AB 633, which would require manufacturers and retailers to guarantee the wages of garment workers.
“Please pass this law to help us obtain and to enforce humane working conditions,” she told the legislators.
The measure passed the full Assembly last month and was approved July 14 by the Senate Industrial Relations Committee. It will go before the full Senate in September.
“When we were . . . in El Monte, almost everybody had a bad temper because we were trapped,” said Cheunchujit, who still suffers from numb fingers, back pain and periodic depression from her nearly five years of captivity.
These days, Cheunchujit carries a pager to enable friends to contact her quickly. “I am the only one who has free time,” she said.
The pager went off on a recent day while Cheunchujit was cleaning her house. It was a friend asking for a favor. Of course, she answered, then dashed out the door.
“Before, I would have said, ‘I have to finish cleaning the house first before I can take you,’ ” she said. “I’ve learned not to sweat over small things.”
The Thai workers were lured to Los Angeles by recruiters in Bangkok, where they had gone looking for jobs. They were promised top wages in the United States, and arrived here as tourists. They were met at Los Angeles International Airport and taken directly to the San Gabriel Valley complex where their passports and valuables were confiscated.
The Thai workers still in the United States have been issued special visas provided to witnesses whose testimony for the government could endanger their lives. (Relatives in Thailand received threats, accompanied by pictures of the workers. The workers are now applying for permanent residency.)
Despite their ordeal, workers show no bitterness toward their former captors.
“I forgive them,” said Sutchai Chaisuni, who was among the sickliest of the workers during their confinement.
Within 2 1/2 years of her release, the 25-year-old woman, who had only completed the fifth grade in Thailand, passed a high school equivalency test.
During her 30 months of schooling, Chaisuni could only sleep about four hours a night because she was working at a garment factory by day and attending school at night.
She went to bed with a tape recorder playing her English teacher’s lessons. Each night, she recalled praying, “Dear God, can you help me? This is not my country, this is not my language. Give me my mind to know and to memorize what the teacher has told me.”
She eventually earned a licensed vocational nursing certificate. When her mother heard the news, she exclaimed: “Now, I can die!”
Chaisuni works at a Hollywood convalescent hospital. “I like to help people--especially old people,” she said. Chaisuni sent all of her settlement money home to her mother.
The workers’ world has grown in other ways.
Their contact with their Latino colleagues has given them an appreciation of multiethnic Los Angeles. Bound by their common adversity, the Latino workers who shared in the settlement say that they have been enriched by the Thais. “There is no room for racism between us,” said former worker Pilar Iglesias.
Su, the workers’ attorney, says the experience has changed her too.
For eight months, she met with the workers nightly. Sometimes, it took 90 minutes just to coordinate rides to the meeting, held usually at the legal center’s downtown office.
Su recruited volunteers to teach English to the workers. She took them to doctors and dentists, and helped in finding jobs and apartments. She enlisted Century City attorney Ekwan E. Rhow, a Harvard Law School classmate, to assist on the case for free.
“I never imagined I would feel so deeply about my work,” she said.
“We felt we had no control, we couldn’t go anywhere, we didn’t know anything,” Cheunchujit said. “Now, it’s very different.”
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7171812f1682f0688552dbf9fb52fc09 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-jun-04-mn-44037-story.html | Incest Trial Sheds Light on Polygamy in Utah | Incest Trial Sheds Light on Polygamy in Utah
For three days this week, a jury of eight men listened to competing versions of the truth, verbal combat that pitted the testimony of a nervous teenage girl against a powerful family whose private practices she dared reveal to the world. The bizarre case shed light on an almost Gothic tableau of incest, polygamy and the messy consequences of divulging family secrets.
The incest trial of David Kingston, 33, who is charged with having sex with his then-16-year-old niece last year, highlighted values held dear in Utah--church, family and filial obligation--and set them against the law and reformers who would shed the state of lingering remnants of its pioneer heritage.
On Thursday, jurors found Kingston guilty of incest and unlawful sexual conduct. Kingston was found not guilty on two other incest counts. The closely watched decision may or may not have sent a message about the state’s resolve to stamp out polygamy.
The practice was given an indirect public hearing through the actions of the teenager, who in May 1998 walked 4 1/2 miles down a dirt road and dialed 911. She told a Box Elder County sheriff’s deputy that her father, John Daniel Kingston, had driven her from Salt Lake City to a remote ranch near the Idaho border and beat her into unconsciousness.
John Kingston pleaded guilty last month to charges he committed that assault, which authorities said was intended as punishment after his daughter ran away from an arranged marriage with her uncle. The girl said she was the 15th wife of David Kingston, part of the Kingston Clan, a large group of self-proclaimed fundamentalist Mormons who practice polygamy, or multiple marriage.
John Kingston is awaiting sentencing. David will be sentenced July 9 and could face up to five years in prison on each count.
“This is a case where the opposing views are on opposite ends of the spectrum,” Assistant Dist. Atty. C. Dane Nolan told the jury. “What you need to focus on is, was she telling the truth.”
Credibility was at the core of the case. David Kingston, who sat stone-faced during the trial, did not testify. But testifying over parts of two days, the small, pale teenager, speaking at barely audible levels, wove a strange tale of multiple marriages, incestuous couplings and an almost cult-like control over the lives of family members.
The girl told of her father instructing her, when she was 13, to begin thinking about marriage. Two years later, he informed her of the identity of her betrothed: his younger brother David.
David Kingston, 16 years older than his niece, is an accountant for the business holdings of the Kingston family, valued by some at $150 million. According to the victim, David was already married to 14 women, including his half-sister and another niece.
Though she didn’t want to go through with it, the girl dutifully planned the wedding, cleaning the church for the reception. Her father presided over the ceremony at which she and David Kingston sat on a bench, with his other wives behind them, she testified.
Soon after their October 1998 wedding, Kingston gave her a ring set with 15 stones to signify her place in the wifely order.
According to the girl, she and her husband/uncle spent their wedding night at a hotel in Park City.
The defense did not dispute that Kingston stayed in the hotel but, in a dramatic turn, called his legal wife, Sharli Kingston. Answering questions in a terse bark, Sharlie Kingston testified it was she who accompanied her husband to Park City that night, casting doubt on the girl’s entire story.
But Sharlie Kingston’s story began to unravel when prosecutor Nolan instructed her to draw a diagram of the hotel room on a board. Haltingly, she did, describing the television as being placed inside an armoire. She was so nervous she began to hyperventilate and, when excused, rushed from the room.
Moments later, Nolan called the victim as a rebuttal witness.
“Can you diagram the hotel room from your wedding night?” he asked the girl, who had been outside the courtroom for the previous testimony. The teenager quickly sketched out the room, noting there were two sinks, the television was on top of a dresser and a pool could be seen outside the window.
Nolan then called Kevin McDougal, assistant manager of the hotel. When asked, McDougal strode to the board and began to draw the room. With each stroke of the pen, the hotel room took shape exactly as the victim had described it.
Although the hotel room, in which the girl said the newlyweds did not have sex, was not a crucial element to the case, the accounts did seem to give the girl credibility and cast doubt on the stories of Sharlie Kingston and another woman, purported to be another wife, who testified for the defense.
The trial provided a fascinating glimpse into the community of polygamists, who are believed to number as many as 30,000 throughout Utah. Although the practice was once common here and sanctioned by the Mormon Church, both the church and state outlawed multiple marriages in 1890. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints excommunicates anyone who practices polygamy.
No one in Utah has been prosecuted for polygamy in more than 40 years, but polygamist communities dot the rural landscape. One reason for the lack of punishment, law enforcement officials say, is that no specific statute makes polygamy illegal in Utah. Prosecution might fall under the state’s bigamy laws, but polygamists here are rarely bigamists: bigamists officially marry more than one person; polygamists usually officially marry their first wife, then take multiple wives in church ceremonies.
Others cite the serious consequences facing a victim who comes forward with a story that puts her at odds with a huge, extended family.
“If you don’t have a victim, you don’t have a crime,” said Marianne Suarez, the sheriff’s deputy who investigated the case against John Kingston.
The case here was tried before veteran Judge David S. Young. In 1994, Young was named by Redbook magazine as one of the country’s most sexist judges. And a 1996 analysis by the Salt Lake Tribune newspaper revealed Young’s decisions to be the most overturned in the state.
Young announced on the first day that the trial was “not about polygamy” but incest, and throughout the trial prevented Nolan from introducing any evidence that suggested David Kingston is a polygamist.
When discussing why one of her roommates was not at home on a particular night, the victim explained that it was “her night"--the assigned night for her to spend with David Kingston. The judge would not allow it.
Young claims to be a direct descendant of Brigham Young, the early leader of the Mormon church.
Though the case was considered by some to be a legal referendum on polygamy, few believe it will have much effect.
“I’ve seen polygamy wax and wane as an issue here,” said Ed Brass, a criminal defense attorney. “There’s horrendous child abuse cases that take place every day and they don’t get the attention of this case. I don’t think, legally, it will be significant.”
But Laura Chapman, who grew up in polygamy and went on to help found an anti-polygamy group, saw the verdict another way: “This gives girls trapped in polygamy the hope that they can escape, they can control their own lives. This says there is hope in the state of Utah.”
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f5e663c807c52780588e2d8dc4d0c3b5 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-jun-10-me-46263-story.html | Great Leap Into Reform | Great Leap Into Reform
Tuesday’s vote for a new Los Angeles City Charter is a great achievement. By an unexpectedly wide margin, voters shelved the city’s 74-year-old fossil of a charter and substituted one that promises a more responsive, efficient and accountable city government. Now begins the hard work to make that promise a reality.
Passage of Measure 1 is an unqualified and hard-fought victory for Mayor Richard Riordan, who initiated the current reform effort and spearheaded fund-raising for the campaign. He took his lumps in the process, sometimes from this editorial page. But he led as leaders must, setting an agenda and mobilizing behind it.
Credit just as properly belongs to the 36 men and women of the two charter reform commissions who, in more than 300 meetings over two years, crafted a document that will serve Los Angeles’ future, not its past.
Though reform efforts in past decades failed, the commitment this time by charter drafters to an open process of deliberation, as well as their unusually broad coalition of supporters, left opponents isolated and without persuasive arguments. Tuesday’s vote should be seen for what it is, a repudiation of the politics of self-interest, of the hysterical and hollow charges that opponents leveled against this charter and of the blatant arm-twisting by opponents on the City Council during the final weeks. With their vote, Angelenos signaled that they had had enough.
The real winners are residents in every corner of the city. Voters who received the slim new charter in the mail last month could immediately see its advantages over the phone-book-size set of rules that had directed--many would say hobbled--city operations since 1925. The new charter makes relatively modest but sensible changes. It strengthens the mayor’s office, creates a citywide network of neighborhood councils to encourage resident participation, clarifies the role of the Police Commission’s inspector general, requires regular audits of city finances and imposes a code of conduct on all elected officials.
The passage also marks a beginning. The new document will in part take effect immediately, but most of its provisions will become law on July 1, 2000. Between now and then, the mayor and the City Council, with the assistance of the city attorney, must review scores of existing ordinances and code provisions and draft new ones that conform to and implement the charter. That’s a lot to ask in little more than a year. To make this happen, City Atty. James Hahn, who has consistently supported the new charter, should draw on legal experts from the two reform commissions, the men and women who drafted the revision and know it and the old document better than anyone else.
Members of the City Council, many of whom did almost everything they could to defeat the measure, must now make sure that its implementation is adequately funded. The two newly elected council members--Nick Pacheco, a former charter commission member, and Alex Padilla, a reform supporter--are expected to help.
Other reform tasks remain to be done. Voters defeated two measures that would have increased the size of the City Council. Little wonder that voters didn’t want more council members, given the reputations of several in the current bunch. But that leaves council districts of nearly 250,000 residents, largest of any U.S. city, mocking the notion of representative government. Once the new charter settles in, perhaps voters can revisit this issue. Smaller districts would do more to connect residents to their city and to bring accountability to City Hall than almost any other change.
Amendment 2, which also passed Tuesday, opens up the process for drawing school board districts. That’s a start, but a serious revision of the school district’s structure and organization is overdue. So too is a review of the city’s cumbersome Civil Service system, left largely untouched by charter drafters.
No charter alone, no matter how well drafted, can transform city government and make politicians accountable. But in passing Measure 1, city voters have taken a historic leap in that direction.
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3562a5752c589363a7242cc044fa05e7 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-jun-12-ca-45573-story.html | History of Gems | History of Gems
Columbia Pictures’ history with the subsidiary label Screen Gems goes back even further than the TV label created in 1948 (In the Know, May 31). The name was first used in 1933 when Columbia Pictures acquired part ownership of the Charles Mintz animation studio. The studio, at the time, was producing “Krazy Kat” and “Scrappy” cartoons for theatrical release. In 1937, Columbia took over complete ownership of the Screen Gems studio and continued releasing cartoons into the late 1940s.
Just as the name of the label is no longer in limbo, the cartoons are too about to be freed from the vaults. A new series from Columbia TriStar International Television, “Totally Tooned In,” is currently in production using restored prints of these rare vintage cartoons. It should appear on TV later this year.
JERRY BECK
Coordinating Producer, “Totally Tooned In,” West Hollywood
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e7450d4897545b9828a11675e52af24b | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-jun-12-fi-45646-story.html | Oakley Will Open Its First Store, Employ an Ad Agency | Oakley Will Open Its First Store, Employ an Ad Agency
Oakley Inc. will open its first store next month at the Irvine Spectrum Center, part of a broad push under a new chief executive to increase the company’s visibility and expand all of its product lines.
During Oakley’s annual shareholders’ meeting Friday, the new chief executive, William D. Schmidt, outlined steps the Foothill Ranch company will take to boost its brand, including hiring an outside advertising agency for the first time.
Although its stock continues to struggle, Oakley, which had limited itself to making sunglasses, is clearly not backing down from its decision to tackle new markets by selling athletic shoes and watches.
The company will introduce a third shoe line by the end of the year--including an “urban assault combat boot” dubbed “Das Boot.” It also will expand its watch line, adding seven new styles. Demonstrating its determination not to be pigeonholed, Oakley displayed one of its limited-edition, solid-gold $25,000 watches.
Chief Operating Officer Link Newcomb blamed the flagging share price on concern by investors over the company’s prospects as a shoemaker. Erasing that uncertainty is a top priority, said Newcomb, who had been chief executive until Schmidt took the position last month.
Oakley’s stock, which hit a 52-week high of $14.88 last July, closed Friday at $7.81, down 6 cents a share.
Founder Jim Jannard, who has been buying up shares, made it clear to other shareholders that he too is upset by the sagging stock.
“Every time I look at our stock price, I have an out-of-body experience,” he said.
Analyst Mark R. Miller of Merrill Lynch Global Securities agreed with Newcomb’s assessment about what’s dragging down the share price.
Sales of the first shoe--introduced last year--were disappointing, he said. A second, less expensive line will be in stores shortly, and the third line will be ready by the year’s end.
“It highlights that management is committed to this endeavor,” Miller said. “We think Oakley is a brand that probably can be directed to a wider audience.”
Oakley is also hoping to reach a wider group--and perhaps a broader age range--of customers with its new wire frames for prescription lenses.
Prescription eye wear represents only about 1% of the company’s sales, but the new line can move Oakley deeper into that market, the company said.
“Prescription glasses is a huge market opportunity for us,” said Schmidt, a former Gatorade executive.
The company’s new O Store, which opens July 2, will be used as a “test market” for new products and to educate customers about the company’s technology.
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09045213f2d9d66e1978820d295eabe8 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-jun-16-me-47063-story.html | Tobacco Funds to Be Used for Sidewalks, Parks | Tobacco Funds to Be Used for Sidewalks, Parks
Los Angeles will use the first installment of its multimillion-dollar windfall from the national tobacco settlement to improve wheelchair access to sidewalks and build parks, under a plan approved by the City Council Tuesday.
The council unanimously agreed to spend about $8 million it expects to receive in the first year of the 25-year settlement deal to build sidewalk curb ramps, which are required by federal law.
But a dispute arose over what to do with the remainder of the first-year money--more than $5 million. The council decided to use $4 million of those funds to build parks in poor neighborhoods.
That move defied the wishes of several public health officials, who asked the council to allow a task force to recommend how the money should be spent.
In fact, the 1998 settlement with four major tobacco companies does not dictate how states are to use the money they receive. The $206-billion settlement was reached with 46 states to avert lawsuits that sought to recover Medicaid dollars spent to treat sick smokers. Los Angeles’ share of the agreement will total $312 million over 25 years.
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de8d7b8bb44759183b197484d011df87 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-jun-16-sp-47097-story.html | All 32 Games Will Be Televised | All 32 Games Will Be Televised
Over the past few years, John Paul Dellacamera and Rob Stone have become virtually synonymous with women’s soccer in the United States, the former as a play-by-play announcer and the latter as a feature specialist who anchors Worldwide Soccer.
Things will be no different in the World Cup.
All 32 games will be shown on television--either live or on tape delay, by ABC, ESPN and ESPN2--and Dellacamera and Stone will be at the forefront of the coverage.
The games will be uninterrupted by commercials during each 45-minute half.
Most viewers, of course, will be focusing their attention on the United States team as it tries to recapture the world championship it won eight years ago. Two of the players from that 1991 side, forward Wendy Gebauer and goalkeeper Amy Allman, are part of the broadcast team.
The pair will do game analysis on at least 18 of the 32 World Cup matches.
In addition to Dellacamera, play-by-play will be handled by Bob Ley, Derek Rae and Holly Rowe. Additional analysts are Seamus Malin and former U.S. men’s national team player Ty Keough. ESPN Sportscenter’s Chris McKendry will file reports on the U.S. team throughout the three-week tournament and also will serve as a sideline reporter at all U.S. games.
Dellacamera, who said he has covered “pretty much all the U.S. games, or at least the ones that have aired on ESPN” since 1994, said it has been one of his most enjoyable broadcasting experiences.
‘The exciting part of the U.S. women’s game is the way they attack,” he said. “We’ve been spoiled by the success of this women’s team. It’s a real pleasure to call their games.”
In fact, the women’s game as whole is more appealing, Dellacamera claimed.
“It’s more of a pure game,” he said. “There are fewer stoppages for fouls. There’s less of pulling of jerseys, less acting, less diving and that sort of thing. It’s a purer game from that standpoint, especially the way the U.S. plays, with ball possession and stretching the defense. It’s a pretty game to watch as a fan or as an announcer.”
Best of all, access to the American players and their response to coverage has been tremendous.
“They’re super, they’re very cooperative,” he said. “Since 1991, a lot of things have changed. It’s heavily commercialized and these people have a lot of demands on their time. And still they’re very pleasant all the time to deal with and I think they respect what we do just like we respect what they do.”
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d36f99df04beb6e377625b2f37aba021 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-jun-21-ca-48611-story.html | Even an Insider Found Jar Jar, Well, Jarring | Even an Insider Found Jar Jar, Well, Jarring
How annoying is Jar Jar Binks? The comical, animated Gungan is so off-putting that even one of his creators says he found him hard to stomach at first.
The floppy-eared, loose-jointed creature who made his debut in “Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace” was an immediate hit with children, but many adults walked out of theaters loathing the character, who is on screen for 30 minutes.
Now comes word that even within the confines of George Lucas’ Industrial Light & Magic, the visual-effects company that created animated characters for the movie, some of the people responsible for bringing the duck-billed alien to life recognized that he would alienate audiences.
At the recent Visual Effects Society seminar, “Phantom’s” effects supervisor, Rob Coleman, was asked his reaction to the character. “When I read the script the first time, I had a reaction similar to what many of you had when you saw the movie,” he said to laughs from the audience.
He said that Lucas told him, though, that he had designed Jar Jar to appeal to children ages 9 to 15, and the director was confident the target group would find the character appealing.
“I only had one audience member to please and that was George Lucas,” Coleman said. “If he was happy with what we were doing with Jar Jar, then I was happy.”
Some audience members have also complained that Jar jar, who speaks a Caribbean-flavored pidgin English and belongs to a race that fights with shields and stonelike energy balls, is an offensive racial caricature. His loose-limbed gait has been one target of criticism, with some people calling him an intergalactic Stepin Fetchit, but Coleman said Jar Jar walks the way he does because he is a sea-dwelling creature maneuvering on land.
Animators gave the character five different walks, he said, including one for walking on hot sand and another he termed “the Gungan shuffle.”
As he worked on the character, Coleman said, Jar Jar began to grow on him. He’s logged onto Internet newsgroups devoted to the character and found that fans who attend multiple viewings find Jar Jar less irritating with exposure. “People are giving him a second chance,” he said. “On second viewing people understand him better.”
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70b54df0d0a03e01909e24b8917dea58 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-jun-21-me-48752-story.html | Frustrations Abound in First Year of Prop. 227 | Frustrations Abound in First Year of Prop. 227
Ventura County educators disagree on the benefits of bilingual education. They clash on the best way to teach children who speak little or no English. And they have failed to reach any consensus on how to implement Proposition 227 since it passed one year ago this month.
But educators do agree that putting the law into practice has made for a tumultuous, confusing and frustrating year. Some districts, including Santa Paula and Fillmore, eliminated bilingual programs and made way for English-based classes, battling with resistant teachers the whole time.
Districts such as Ventura and Oxnard got their bilingual classes back up and running after 30 days of mandated English instruction, and after hundreds of parents signed waivers requesting a return to native language instruction.
And Thousand Oaks and Simi Valley school districts, which already relied on English-based classes, made minimal changes.
Ventura County schools interpreted Proposition 227--the law designed to dismantle bilingual education in California--in myriad ways. And the law, however it was implemented, has had a tremendous impact on students, parents, administrators and teachers.
Students in newly created English-immersion classes speak more English, but are struggling to read and write on grade level, educators say. Parents are more informed about the county’s programs, and are more vocal about how they want their children educated. Many have also taken advantage of tutoring classes created by the landmark initiative.
Teachers are surprised and pleased by how quickly some children are learning English. They are also afraid to speak Spanish for fear of getting sued and are frustrated by the lack of direction from state educators on how to follow the law.
“Every school district and every school classroom is wrestling with this,” said Cliff Rodrigues, the county’s director of bilingual education. “And the effect that we’ve seen from day one is a lot of frustration on the part of teachers, and a lot more frustration on the part of kids.”
Socorro Aguirre, who teaches first-grade English-immersion class at McKevett School in Santa Paula, said she felt like she was completely on her own. “This was not something I wanted to do,” she said. “It was something I was told to do. I had to put my politics aside, and it was tough.”
The law, approved by 61% of California voters last June, requires nearly all instruction to be in English. Children were to receive one-year of English-immersion instruction and then be transferred into mainstream classes.
But in several Ventura County classrooms, bilingual programs are still alive because of a clause that allowed parents the option of returning their children to traditional bilingual classes after 30 days.
Proposition 227 supporters criticize districts for pushing parents to sign waivers, and argue that several districts throughout California are not in compliance with the law.
English for the Children spokesperson Sherri Annis said Stanford 9 results, which will be released June 30, will be the first real evaluation of Proposition 227.
“Those schools that have blatant violations of 227 will have to speak to why the scores are low,” Annis said. “And it will have to go back to why they are not implementing the initiative.”
But state education officials argue that Stanford 9 did not test students’ English abilities and should not be used to judge the success or failure of Proposition 227.
Dual-language posters cover the walls in Matt Walden’s traditional third-grade bilingual class at E.P. Foster School in Ventura. On an average day, Walden said, he speaks 70% in English and 30% in Spanish. He explains instructions and teaches concepts in both languages, and does reading in Spanish with most of his students.
At the beginning of class last Monday, students corrected sentences in their native language. “When do we need to use a capital letter?” Walden asked the students in Spanish.
“At the beginning of a sentence,” 8-year-old Luis Cortez answered in Spanish.
“We need to value bilingualism and not shut out their language and culture,” Walden said. “That makes them feel better, and helps them more in the long-run because they will know two languages.”
Aguirre, known by her first-grade students as Ms. Coco, agrees with Walden. So it was difficult for her to hide 25 years of Spanish-language books and teaching materials in the closet this year as she taught an English-immersion class.
Aguirre said she’s pleased to see how much English her students have learned, and how quickly their reading skills have progressed, but worries whether they understand what they read.
After Alejandra Patino, 6, read a page from “A Tale of Peter Rabbit” on a recent morning, Aguirre asked her why Peter Rabbit was crying.
“It’s cause he lost his jacket,” Alejandra correctly told her teacher.
Each day, Aguirre drills English phonics and language skills with the students, but said she still helps them in Spanish if they get confused. “Yes, they can read, but where is the comprehension, where is the vocabulary, and more importantly, what have we done to their dignity? If they are swimming and sinking, I am not going to let them drown.”
Rosa Patino said her daughter Alejandra has learned more English this year than in kindergarten, and attributes that to the changes in the bilingual program. Occasionally, Alejandra translates for her or helps with her own English-language studies. But Patino worries that Alejandra will lose her ability to speak, read and write Spanish.
“The kids are going to be at a disadvantage in the future because they won’t be able to speak Spanish and they will be competing with people who may be bilingual.”
On a survey at McKevett, 100 parents said they were satisfied with the changes made to the bilingual program, while 19 said they were somewhat satisfied and 17 said they were not satisfied.
At San Cayetano School in Fillmore, Principal Phyllys Lloyd said both parents and teachers were resistant to Proposition 227 and English-immersion classes at first. “They felt like they were abandoning the children,” she said. “But as the year went on, and children did learn and did progress, there was a change in attitude, and that new attitude gained momentum.”
Since the law’s inception, Kris Gutierrez, an associate professor at UCLA’s Graduate School of Education, has been studying its impact in three Southern California school districts. A few of the preliminary findings show the following:
* The meaning of structured immersion classes varies from district to district and school to school.
* Teachers report feeling frustrated, unprepared and devalued by the policy.
* There is very little native-language support, despite teachers’ belief in the value of such support and despite the fact that it is allowed to clarify concepts.
The state superintendent of public instruction also set up a task force to analyze the effect of Proposition 227. Edda Caraballo, a consultant with the state Department of Education and who serves on the task force, said the state needs to provide teachers with specific standards for English language development, so they know what to teach their limited-English speakers.
“People have been floundering around a lot this year,” Caraballo said. “The most negative impact [of Proposition 227] is the overall confusion.”
In addition, teachers do not have enough materials and do not receive enough training, Caraballo said.
“If the Legislature really wanted these kids to learn English quickly, they would put some money behind it,” she said. “It’s a really challenging time. And it will get even more complicated and complex to teach English learners with a shortage of trained teachers.”
Ventura County educators have similar concerns, and await the recommendations from the state task force, which will be released in August. Meanwhile, they are already preparing for next year by informing parents about their options and collecting waivers.
“We want to be ready to go when the school year begins,” said Rodrigues of the county schools office. “We don’t want to waste any time.”
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21ec01490c69af0dee99d835252d4bdd | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-jun-28-mn-50904-story.html | George Papadopoulos; Led Military Junta in Greece | George Papadopoulos; Led Military Junta in Greece
Col. George Papadopoulos, who headed the military dictatorship in Greece from 1967 to 1973 that imprisoned thousands of political dissidents, died of cancer at an Athens hospital Sunday. He was 80 and was serving a life sentence for treason and insurrection.
Papadopoulos led an obscure faction of Greek army officers that seized power from a paramilitary government in a lightning coup just before general elections in April 1967. The officers claimed they acted to end rampant corruption in the government, which they feared would bring Communists to power in Greece.
For the record:
12:00 AM, Jul. 01, 1999 For the Record Los Angeles Times Thursday July 1, 1999 Home Edition Part A Page 26 Metro Desk 1 inches; 18 words Type of Material: Correction Papadopoulos coup--An obituary on Col. George Papadopoulos in Monday’s Times misspelled the name of a Greek island. It is Gyaros.
They quickly imposed an ultraconservative regime and set up special military tribunals under a state-of-siege order. Political parties were banned, censorship introduced and the secret police began torturing suspected opponents. More than 10,000 people were arrested during the first few days, and as many as 6,000 were deported to the island of Yaros, described in one news dispatch at the time as a rat-infested rock of an island in the Aegean Sea.
The junta even tried to impose restrictions on personal appearance. Women were harassed for wearing miniskirts and men were jailed if their hair was deemed too long.
King Constantine, Greece’s figurehead monarch, was unaware of the putsch beforehand but accepted the junta, believing he could eventually control the situation with the help of military loyalists. He tried a counter-coup later that year, but it failed miserably and the royal family was forced into exile in Italy, never to return.
Driving the king from power was a large step for Papadopoulos, the son of a village schoolmaster, who was born in the Peloponnesian region of southern Greece. He graduated first in his class from the country’s War Academy just before hostilities with Italy broke out in 1940. He was commissioned a second lieutenant and served throughout World War II and then with nationalist forces that defeated the Communist insurgents in the 1946-49 civil war in Greece. In the late 1950s, he was posted to the Greek Intelligence Service and became chief of national security and counterintelligence. From 1964 until the 1967 coup, he commanded artillery units and held the rank of colonel.
Even foreigners were not immune from the Greek junta. After throwing red flowers into the crowd at an Athens concert, Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones was pulled offstage by officials who believed he was making a statement in support of communism.
The junta was condemned in the West for its authoritarianism. The United States imposed a temporary ban on arms sales. But a 1971 visit by then-Vice President Spiro T. Agnew, who was of Greek descent, was viewed as tacit support for the dictatorship.
When a group of naval officers attempted a coup in support of the monarchy in 1973, Papadopoulos abolished the monarchy and declared Greece a republic. He installed himself president, lifted martial law, freed political prisoners and promised parliamentary elections.
His downfall came in November 1973, during a protest at Athens Polytechnic school. Fighting broke out to quell the demonstrators but quickly got out of hand, spreading through downtown Athens. At least 50 people were killed and more than 1,000 injured.
Maj. Gen. Dimitrios Ioannides, chief of the military police and a noted torturer, seized on the incident to oust Papadopoulos and reimpose martial law. Ioannides reign was short-lived, however, collapsing in July 1974, after he plotted a military takeover of Cyprus. The abortive coup provoked a Turkish invasion of the island, which remains divided into Greek and Turkish zones.
In 1975, the government of Prime Minister Constantine Caramanlis tried Papadopoulos, his successor Ioannides and 31 others for complicity in the deaths of the student demonstrators. Papadopoulos was convicted and sentenced to be executed by firing squad, but Caramanlis commuted the sentence, fearing military reprisals.
Papadopoulos spent the rest of his life in hospitals and in a special wing of Korydallos maximum-security prison near Athens.
He is survived by his wife, Despina. Funeral plans were not immediately known.
*
FRANK TARLOFF: Frank Tarloff, Academy Award-winning screenwriter blacklisted in the 1950s, has died. B1
* BOBS WATSON: Bobs Watson, a child film star in golden years of Hollywood, dies. B3
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a2f6c05c3177213b1f77bc60a5d45003 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-jun-30-ss-51762-story.html | EL TORO, 1943 - 1999 | EL TORO, 1943 - 1999
Just after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, in a time when orange groves still stretched alongside dusty farm roads from the Santa Ana Mountains to the sea, the U.S. Marines put their boots down in the heart of Orange County. They wanted a training ground for hotshot pilots destined to do battle in the Pacific Rim. It would change everything.
The site they selected was smack in the middle of James Irvine’s finest 28,000-acre lima bean field, then the world’s largest. We’re taking your land, they told the crusty rancher. Your best land. Irvine, whose father and uncle had fought off Southern Pacific railroad surveyors half a century earlier with shotgun-armed sentries, balked.
But an implacable Marine colonel told him that if he didn’t sell, Japanese occupation forces might come for it. The site was perfect: In a flat valley shielded from the coast, virtually fog-free. Irvine relented and sold two pieces, one for El Toro, the other for what would become the Tustin Marine Corps Air Station. The price: $100,000, the equivalent of about $1 million adjusted for inflation. Today, the land is worth closer to $10 billion, according to one estimate.
Located at the county’s geographic center, the base grew through the years to epitomize for many the soul of Orange County, providing strong military roots and a rock-ribbed Republican, defense-oriented way of life. Along with Tustin, Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station, Los Alamitos Armed Forces Reserve Center and Camp Pendleton, El Toro was one of the country’s most strategically significant military outposts.
El Toro helped put the county on the map. Friday, the map will be redrawn.
After a formal decommissioning that will include the Tustin facility, the sprawling base will be little more than a fenced-in swath of federal land: 4,700 acres of vacated buildings and yawning runways packed full of stories.
It opened so hurriedly that the first leathernecks were put up in Irvine’s ranch-hand bunkhouse.
For years the nation’s largest marine aviation station, El Toro was its own city of sorts, with 50,000 service men and women and civilians alike moving through its gates annually. It boasted everything from its own church and school to a car wash, golf course and stables.
But the core of the base was the air operations. For more than half a century, El Toro played a critical role in dozens of conflicts around the globe, including World War II, Vietnam, Desert Storm and Somalia.
From the first Mainside runway, and later the 10,000-foot-long, razor-straight Fighter runway, hundreds of thousands of young Marines in thundering Corsairs, A-6 Intruders and F/A-18 Hornets shrieked off to battle in Iwo Jima, Da Nang and Iraq.
It was here that some Marines, never all, returned to the outstretched arms of wives and children.
As the base grew older, so did the county and the once-young fighters who first served there. Many never left Orange County after being discharged through the front gate. They found jobs and raised families in Santa Ana and Anaheim, then planned communities such as Mission Viejo and Lake Forest.
Many retired nearby, but they returned often, to take the grandchildren to the spectacular annual air show, use the commissary and the barbershop, or stop by the museum to reminisce about the Grey Ghosts, the Black Sheep and other famed squadrons.
“This base was a major conduit, bringing in a steady stream of revenues, ideas and families,” said El Toro veteran and museum curator Tom O’Hara, author of a base history titled “MCAS El Toro 1943-1999.” “It has been a major factor in the growth of Orange County.”
With a new millennium dawning, Orange County, already in the midst of transforming its identity, will have to decide what to put at its center--more housing, a sports-and-entertainment stadium, maybe a mega-shopping complex or nature preserve.
The most controversial plan calls for building a commercial airport. Sentiments on that are intense. If there is something that bridges the divide though, it is the affection felt by many in Orange County for the old Marine base.
“Whatever you put there, one thing is certain,” said the last commanding officer, Col. Stephen Mugg. “Orange County is never going to have a better neighbor than us.”
Base’s Dedication Marred by Crash
It was a grim beginning.
“This base was christened in blood,” recalls Jim Sleeper, former Irvine Co. historian and author, who was 15 when he attended the March 17, 1943, dedication.
The base was still “pretty raw at that point. They did have some barracks, but it was kind of like an open-faced sandwich,” recalled Sleeper, now 72. After a round of speeches and a parade of troops, nine Marine pilots took off in formation as hundreds of spectators looked on.
“Suddenly, one of the planes spluttered,” Sleeper said. “For reasons never revealed, it then plummeted to Earth at the south end of the field, less than 500 yards from the first busload of civilians. The ship plowed into the ground with tremendous force, sending up a giant dust cloud.”
The pilot was a Guadalcanal veteran, Matthew Kennedy of Terre Haute, Ind.
“He had three Japanese planes to his credit, only to die at home in an aerial parade,” Sleeper said.
The base’s location was perfect for its primary use: advanced training of pilots on their way to war.
“Many of the sophisticated tactics which permitted the Marines to attack, hold and capture the islands in the Pacific had been worked out in advance over the [local] hills and valleys,” wrote Vi Smith in “From Jennies to Jets: The Aviation History of Orange County.”
Some El Toro veterans went on to become famous--or infamous.
Future astronaut and senator John Glenn and baseball great Ted Williams fought in the same squadron during the Korean War. Gregory “Pappy” Boyington, founder of the famed Black Sheep Squadron and the Marine’s all-time ace pilot, passed through. Actors Robert Conrad and Tyrone Powers served there too. So did Lee Harvey Oswald.
Persistent Rumors of Imminent Closure
The base was named after the one-lane community nearby, El Toro--Spanish for “the bull.”
The snorting red namesake icon was a popular--though racy--one. When Walt Disney redesigned it, it kept its wings but lost its tattoo and was rendered “gender neutral.”
During World War II, civilian cars still drove through the base on Trabuco Avenue. Pilots had to wait to take off until traffic signals changed. When the war ended, the future of El Toro, like hundreds of other new bases, was up in the air.
But in 1949, the 1st Marine Air Wing moved in from its former station in China. The unit brought back souvenirs--a huge Taoist bronze-and-silver bell made by Chinese villagers and two pieces of Japanese mountain artillery. The relics graced the entrance to El Toro’s headquarters for the next 50 years.
The 1st Air Wing soon headed out for Korea. When that crisis was over, rumors again swirled that El Toro was closing. But in 1955, the 3rd Marine Air Wing, facing growing pressure from developers in Florida, packed up for Orange County.
Still undeveloped, the area around the base had little in the way of entertainment for young Marines.
“Orange County was a pretty Podunky place,” Sleeper said.
So the entertainment came to them. Through the 1940s and ‘50s, Hollywood big band leaders such as Harry James, and stars including Shirley Temple and Jack Benny, made the drive south to perform outdoors. Or, if noisy planes overhead were too much, they took their acts inside the new theater.
A perimeter road, longer runways and athletic fields also were built. In the early years, housing meant little more than barracks. Later, family housing, spacious officers’ quarters and college-style dorms were added.
The county was growing too. In 1958, the Santa Ana Freeway opened along the western edge of the base, a convenient route to an attraction called Disneyland. It would be another decade before the freeway was linked to the San Diego Freeway, forming the El Toro “Y” and a road to what in 1968 was a new shopping experience: South Coast Plaza.
In the 1960s and early ‘70s, El Toro played a pivotal role in Vietnam. Fighter attack squadrons such as the Death Rattlers, Black Knights and Bats swooped out of the base for combat over Southeast Asia.
In June 1965, more than 80 young servicemen packed into a C-135 transport bound for Vietnam died when it crashed into Loma Ridge. It remains the county’s worst aviation disaster.
“You can still find belt buckles out on the hillside,” Sleeper said.
But pilots loved the region’s near-perfect flying conditions as they took the familiar Browning route toward Irvine Lake or the Window route over the orange groves, mesas and hills of then-undeveloped South County. Best known was the flight home along the Fighter path that took pilots from Dana Point toward two red water towers that signified descent.
When fog blanketed the region, “you’d see the two peaks of old Saddleback sticking up through, and that was real good news,” said O’Hara, the museum curator.
Trees Were Planted for President Nixon
When the country pulled out of Vietnam in 1975, America was gripped by televised images of refugees being airlifted off the roof of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon. After transferring into huge transport planes in Guam, many landed at El Toro. Eventually 50,000 immigrants arrived, and another community--Little Saigon--sprang up.
Six privates were forced out of the Corps in 1978 after being caught burning a cross in the picnic area after midnight, some of them clad in Ku Klux Klan-style sheets.
When women’s lib became a national issue, a female Marine from El Toro appeared on the cover of Look magazine--in camouflage. But is was really nothing new. Female Marines had been stationed at the base since it opened, at first limited to maintenance and support duties, but gradually assigned to virtually everything except combat.
As president, Richard M. Nixon often rode Air Force One into El Toro. Beautiful trees were planted to spruce up the base entrance for his trip to the Western White House in San Clemente.
“They were planted for Nixon, but we’ve certainly enjoyed them,” said outgoing base commander Col. Mugg, who said the now mature, lush topiary had been appraised at $500,000. “I hope they don’t just bulldoze it.”
After resigning from office in August 1974, Nixon landed at El Toro to devoted fans. When he died in 1994, his flag-draped casket came home again.
For Marines being discharged, El Toro was also a gateway home. Greyhound buses made regular stops out front. But many veterans who left turned around and came right back as soon as they married, eager to return to a safe place with a good climate, and plenty of work.
O’Hara, discharged in 1978, joined the tide. “Have you ever been to Pittsburgh?” he said laughingly of his hometown.
His best friend urged him to go in on a $30,000 house in Woodbridge, a newly constructed community in Irvine. O’Hara turned him down. Eighteen months later, the house sold for three times as much.
There was no problem finding work with so much construction, and the defense industry and UC Irvine moving in.
“If you could bend a nail you could get a job,” Sleeper said.
Development lapped at the northern edges of the base, then hopped right over it to South County. Civilian jumbo jets, unable to land at Orange County Airport--now John Wayne--tried in vain to win permission to use the base.
As scores of military bases nationwide were shuttered, top military brass insisted again and again that El Toro would not close. They advised neighbors to learn to live with the noise, but did cut back on 24-hour and weekend operations, and fought hard to bar new housing developments too close to flight paths.
“We’ve been here 34 years, and we’ll be here another 34,” insisted Col. Garit Fenenga in a 1977 interview. “Besides, if we did leave, the civilians would take the place over and it would become a 24-hour international airport. And that would be even worse.”
In spite of--or because of--all the high-priced development, affordable housing has always been hard to find. One section of Santa Ana was called Little El Toro because so many young service men and women and their families lived there in cheap rentals.
Air Show Always Drew Big Crowds
The base underwent a multimillion-dollar face-lift in the mid-1980s. Air show attendance also soared, in spite of several crashes that took the lives of daredevil fliers. One crashed into the base chapel in 1985, another in 1993 before 500,000 onlookers.
In 1990, Desert Storm hit. El Toro squadrons were among the first to bomb Iraq. The air show that year was the biggest ever, with more than 1 million turning out to welcome home victorious troops.
The beginning of the end came in 1993. Congress placed El Toro on the list of post-Cold War base closures. It made economic sense, Mugg said, although other top brass and California politicians at the time vehemently disagreed.
“This base sits astride the intersection of two major thoroughfares, on a huge piece of open land,” Mugg said. “It’s just worth more as something else.”
In the six years since, layoffs have been kept to about 125 civilians. Most of the personnel and equipment have been moved 80 miles south to Miramar Marine Corps Air Station in San Diego. The decision was a heartbreaker.
“Aghast,” said O’Hara, speaking of the mood on base the day the news hit. “We all wanted to know who made the deal in a back room . . . because this is the best Marine Corps base there is.”
Maj. Chuck Jay, who is overseeing the El Toro closure, said the Marines aren’t leaving entirely.
“There’s so many of us here in politics, in business, in positions of influence, we’ll be influencing Orange County for a long time to come,” he said.
Vultures, crows and other carrion birds already have replaced the fighter jets. Weeds are sprouting beside jet blast fences.
On Friday, at 1115 hours, give or take a few minutes depending on the speechifying, Mugg and every living former commander are expected to retire the base colors amid solemn pomp.
A World War II vintage Corsair will “touch and go” on the old Mainside runway, and the Marine Hymn will play. Two F-18 fighters will wheel in, bank sharply, then aim for the heavens.
El Toro Marine Corps Air Station will be laid to rest.
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685943e09fbae105497b17de2f97c791 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-mar-01-ca-12799-story.html | Lucinda Williams Pares Down to Brilliant Simplicity | Lucinda Williams Pares Down to Brilliant Simplicity
Lucinda Williams’ music borders on the infuriating.
She sings in a lazy voice that sounds, not unpleasantly, like a chair being dragged across a wooden floor. Oodles of her songs hinge on simple two-chord changes (imagine a succession of Stones albums where nearly every riff is “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” revisited).
She’s equally spare with her lyrics: On the title song of her current “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road” album, she repeats the title refrain 18 times, with not that many other words in between.
When the album’s “Concrete and Barbed Wire” repeats its title line 19 times, you start to wonder: “This is what it took her six years to accomplish since her last album?”
Williams doesn’t exactly cut a rug onstage, either, instead just sort of standing there with what one writer has described as a “deer in the headlights” look.
So you might think that her two-hour concert Saturday at the Galaxy Theatre in Santa Ana would have been an endurance test, rather than the rapturous show it was, where the packed, sold-out house led two standing ovations for more.
Williams may be simple, but she’s simple like cinnamon toast. Something about her lean, parsed-out music can keep a fan coming back to her albums for dozens and dozens of repeat listens, and that familiarity in no way diminishes her music’s power to help see listeners through a dark night.
Williams sings about death, loss, yearning, regret and a few good kisses with an honesty, directness and individual insight that recalls that other Williams: Hank.
Being a Lucinda fan used to be a lonely business, but the release last year of the long, long anticipated “Car Wheels” changed that. In February, that disc won the album of the year nod in the Village Voice national critics poll and the Grammy for contemporary folk album. (She won her first Grammy in 1994, for writing the Mary-Chapin Carpenter hit “Passionate Kisses.” Williams was also nominated this year in the female rock vocal performance category.)
Offsetting those triumphs, Williams lost longtime drummer Donald Lindley to lung cancer Feb. 4. (The much-respected and well-liked musician also had worked with Dave Alvin, Joe Ely and Chris Gaffney, among others.) Williams dedicated Saturday’s show to Lindley, and it would have been a fitting tribute for anyone, spilling over with the compressed emotion and musicality at which she excels.
She opened with “Pineola” from her exquisite 1992 album “Sweet Old World,” a taut, snarling song of anger and loss over a friend’s suicide.
Death pops up in Williams’ songs about as often as it does in life, and two of the standout songs Saturday were the aching “Sweet Old World,” about the simple joys left unsampled by a departed one, and “Drunken Angel,” about a songwriter friend shot and killed “in a senseless argument.”
The song carries some of her most evocative lyrics: “Some kind of savior singin’ the blues / A derelict in your duct-taped shoes / Your orphan clothes and your long dark hair / Lookin’ like you didn’t care, Drunken Angel.”
Her lyrics are so seemingly grounded in real experience that Williams said people always come up to her to express condolences over her brother’s death after hearing of him curled up on a car seat in her “Little Angel, Little Brother.” Before performing the song Saturday, however, she reassured the audience, “He wasn’t dead, he was just dead drunk.”
With such grim material, Williams’ music doesn’t exactly seemed aimed at the hit parade. Williams noted Saturday that she is to be the keynote speaker at this month’s South By Southwest music conference in Austin, Texas, where, she said, she expects to deliver a speech titled “Why I Don’t Want to Be a Star, by Lucinda Williams.”
“Too late, baby!” yelled someone in the audience, prompting Williams to respond, “OK, but only on my terms.”
The six-year ordeal of getting “Car Wheels” recorded and released had a lot to do with record-company politics, she said, but there also was reportedly a lot of second-guessing and reworking on her part, which led to a falling out with her longtime guitarist, co-producer and right-hand man, Gurf Morlix.
They shared a musical empathy of the Jackson Browne-David Lindley variety, and the fire and individualism of Morlix’s guitar work was missed Saturday.
While lacking that bit of magic, Williams nonetheless has a tremendous five-piece band, able to finesse her more tender songs such as “Greenville” and to burn like the “Exile on Main St."-era Stones on others.
Guitarists John Jackson (who also played slide and mandolin-guitar) and Kenny Vaughan had interlocking rhythm lines that kept the songs churning like paddle wheels, and each proved a scorching soloist.
Keyboardist Randy Leago added deft touches of color throughout, while bassist Richard Price and drummer Fran Breen were a rhythm section so perfectly glove-tight that no one would have been acquitted with them around.
That ensemble worked to great effect on “Can’t Let Go,” the country blues-tinged adult-alternative favorite written by Randy Weeks of the Lonesome Strangers.
The band took extended instrumental excursions on “Changed the Locks” and “Joy,” songs that also indicated the sometimes clumsy pacing of the show. Each song is Williams pared to the bone: no chorus, no bridge, just a nonstop repeating riff and a vocal that is mantra-like in its repetition. Singly, each of these songs can be a virtual show-stopper, raw and obsessive and leaving a listener no place to turn. But done back-to-back, as they were Saturday, they verged on the tedious.
Similarly, three blues songs done in succession during the extended encore would have worked better interspersed throughout the set.
Williams said during her performance that show opener Patty Griffin also deserved a Grammy, and the singer-songwriter does indeed have a lot to offer.
Her eight-song set, drawn largely from her recent “Flaming Red” album, displayed a singer with a voice that draws from both country and jazz and a songwriter who can show that rock isn’t entirely dead yet.
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3505e95406cdba0476aefc0e6a4a54d2 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-mar-05-mn-14328-story.html | Sport-Utility Vehicles to Get New Labels on Rollover Risk | Sport-Utility Vehicles to Get New Labels on Rollover Risk
Addressing growing safety concerns about hot-selling sport-utility vehicles, the government today will announce a requirement for dramatic warnings about the danger of rollovers.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will direct auto makers to post a graphic new label--showing a lurching SUV with two wheels high in the air--on the front of the sun visor or the driver’s side window of new models.
The agency said that its action is a first step in a larger effort directed at SUVs, which have boomed in popularity in recent years, appealing to Americans from suburban mothers to young city dwellers. Los Angeles, according to the Polk Co. market research firm, is the top national market for large SUVs like the Ford Expedition. Overall, SUVs account for 18%, or nearly 1 in 5, of all new vehicles sold.
The high-riding vehicles offer occupants a better view of the road and an enhanced feeling of security. But statistics show that SUVs are more prone to flipping over on curves at high speed and in crashes. The danger from instability is compounded by the fact that SUV occupants--many of them young men--are also less likely to wear seat belts.
“People involved in crashes tend to be risk-takers,” a traffic safety agency spokesman said.
Nearly 1,500 people were killed in SUV rollovers in 1997, the most recent year for which statistics are available. According to the National Safety Council, 43,200 people died in traffic accidents that year.
In single-vehicle accidents, which account for about half of all fatal crashes, SUVs rolled over 49% of the time, compared with 17% of the time for cars, 22% for vans and 38% for pickup trucks. More than 70% of the 1,482 SUV occupants killed in rollovers in 1997 were not wearing seat belts.
“Even if occupants are wearing seat belts, rollovers are still pretty violent crashes,” said Julie Rochman, spokeswoman for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. “We support a better label, but it’s not nearly enough--it needs to go further.”
Agency officials said they hope to release a safety standard later this year that will set minimum stability requirements for all sport-utilities. The agency is also considering requirements for crush-resistant roofs, shatter-proof windows to keep occupants from being tossed out in a crash and high-backed seats that would provide the same kind of protection as a roll bar when an SUV flips.
“Buying an SUV involves a trade-off,” Ricardo Martinez, administrator of the traffic safety agency, said in a statement. “While these vehicles may do well in certain types of crashes, they are also more likely to roll over. People should be aware of that trait when they are choosing a family vehicle.”
The traffic safety administration has been test-driving SUVs to gain a better understanding of how rollover crashes happen. Martinez said test results may be used to create a consumer information program that would assign a “rollover rating” to each SUV model, in addition to the crash-test safety ratings that the agency now issues for all passenger vehicles.
Consumer and insurance industry groups, however, regard new warning labels as too timid a step and are urging the government to move ahead with the rest of the safety requirements it is considering.
“A label is just telling the driver what we already know: that these kinds of vehicles have a tendency to roll over,” said Gerald Donaldson of the nonprofit Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety.
The current federal safety label for SUVs has been unchanged for 20 years. Designed before the age of graphics, it consists of an 80-word block of text. There is no requirement on where to place it, though many auto makers affix it to the sun visor.
The industry did not oppose a stiffer warning label outright and succeeded in convincing the agency not to use a more alarming graphic that depicted a human figure going through the window. Auto makers argued that people get tossed out of SUVs in crashes because they do not buckle their seat belts, not because of an inherent defect in the vehicles.
The new label is terse. It reads: “WARNING: Higher Rollover Risk.” It adds below: “Avoid Abrupt Maneuvers and Excessive Speed.” The government’s new rule also will require that safety information in driver manuals be made easier to understand.
Morry Markowitz, a spokesman for the Assn. of International Automobile Manufacturers, said: “The vehicles manufactured today are safer than ever. The industry has already provided an incredible amount of information to consumers.”
The other SUV safety issues that concern the government, such as a rollover rating system, are expected to be more contentious. But a traffic safety agency official said that the industry has cooperated with the government thus far partly because a better reputation for safety would help keep sales of the vehicles strong.
SUVs represent the fastest-growing segment of the new vehicle market. According to J.D. Power and Associates, the 18% of new vehicle sales they represented last year was an increase from 10% as recently as 1993. In 1998, Americans bought 2.8 million new sport-utility vehicles, more than 300,000 of them in California.
As their popularity has grown, so have concerns. SUVs get lower gas mileage than passenger cars. And heavier SUVs inflict disproportionate damage in crashes with passenger cars. Recent government studies have shown that design changes in SUVs have made them less punishing in crashes. Rollovers, however, remain a major issue. Last week, the traffic safety administration announced that three SUVs had flipped over in crash tests.
Times staff writer Judy Lin contributed to this story.
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)
Vehicle Rollover Rates
Percentage of vehicles that rolled over in single-vehicle accidents.
Sport Utility Vehicles: 48.9%
Pickup trucks: 37.5%
Vans: 22.2%
Cars: 17.4%
Source: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
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bc020bd19cb7cd1ca8320c01a850f9ac | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-mar-06-ca-14364-story.html | Eric Bibb Feels No Pain When Singing Blues | Eric Bibb Feels No Pain When Singing Blues
Unless blues music is awfully good, it can be awfully bad. The best blues artists mold the music into a deep personal expression; the rest just connect the dots, trying to fill the rote form of the music with the overwrought sounds of unlived experience.
Not everybody has a hellhound on their trail, but most try to sing like it, resulting in music that R&B; great Johnny Otis once described as sounding like people “scratching when they don’t itch and laughing when it ain’t funny.”
Then there’s Eric Bibb.
He sings as if he doesn’t even have a dachshund on his trail, creating some of the most untroubled-sounding blues this side of the Rev. Gary Davis. And in his quiet way, Bibb is just about stunning.
On his two U.S.-release albums, “Good Stuff” and “Spirit and the Blues,” Bibb, who plays tonight in San Juan Capistrano, melds exquisite acoustic blues with full-throated spirituals (with bluegrass flourishes and with even a wheezy church pump organ pressed into service on one song), singing in a rich, expressive voice that always accentuates the positive.
“A number of people have commented on the more positive, sunny side of the blues that I project,” Bibb said. “When I listen to people like Mississippi John Hurt, it was the lack of overt drama that made his music so wonderful. It was what it is, his life in real time.
“Some of our other blues heroes lived almost insanely intense lives,” he said. “We can only imagine what some of those Southern guys went through on a day-to-day level. That gave their music a certain urgency that was real, and you can’t copy it. When you musically try to emulate them, what you can’t bring to it from your own experience you maybe just lay on top because you think it’s the missing ingredient, but it sounds false.
“For me it was always a question of absorbing this wonderful music, this language, and not taking more than was real for me, in terms of what I could identify with. I mean, I’m an urban guy, not someone sharecropping on the Mississippi Delta. My music is just a reflection of where I’m at in my personal evolution and the times we’re living in.”
Bibb has spent more of his life in proximity to fiords than the delta. The son of New York folk singer Leon Bibb and a nephew of the Modern Jazz Quartet’s John Lewis, Bibb grew up surrounded by the likes of Paul Robeson (who was his godfather), Pete Seeger, Josh White and Bob Dylan.
He attended one of New York’s “Fame” high schools of the arts. In his late teens he traveled to Europe, scrounging out a living with his guitar. He fell in love in Sweden and has lived for some two decades in Stockholm, where he’s raising his own family.
Bibb’s father had come to New York City in the 1940s from Louisville, Ky., with ambitions of being a musical-theater artist. He worked in several Broadway productions, including the original “Annie Get Your Gun,” but, Bibb said, “he soon found out there were very few roles on Broadway for an African American baritone with designs on having major parts.”
“At that point he decided to make a career doing what was also very natural to him: singing spirituals and folk songs. Our house was always full, with musicians and people involved in civil rights and other social causes.
“I was too young to remember Robeson, but meeting Josh White, meeting Odetta, Pete Seeger, Judy Collins, the Rev. Gary Davis, seeing Son House perform at the Newport Folk Festival--it was a thrilling, inspiring childhood,” said Bibb, who has two sisters--one his twin, the other six years younger. “It was all I knew, but even so, I knew it was an enviable position to be in.”
Blues Man in Europe
Though his art-school classmate Janis Ian found success at 17, it has taken Bibb until his mid-40s “to share what I do with people without struggling to find an open avenue.”
He did his time in Europe busking in subway stations, teaching music and working as an accompanist (he also had a job translating Swedish children’s books into English). He still sometimes encounters reverse snobbism over his background.
“In Europe, particularly, people can have a narrow, romantic vision of what constitutes a blues musician. It’s easy to understand, but it’s naive. I sing, and people sort of assume I’m from the South. When I tell them I’m from New York, I can see the disappointment, like I’m suddenly less bluesy,” he said with a laugh.
Bibb recently finished a new album, tentatively titled “Home to Me,” but it probably won’t be released in the U.S. for the better part of a year because “Spirit and the Blues” has only just been issued in the States.
The album was actually recorded and released in 1994, three years before “Good Stuff.” It’s all timeless music, so it scarcely matters if America gets the chronology wrong.
Bibb also played on the children’s album “Shakin’ a Tailfeather” with Taj Mahal and Linda Tillery, with whom Bibb shared a 1997 Grammy nomination for the album.
Explaining why he pursues his craft, Bibb said, “I was nurtured and had my first musical revelations at a time when music was very much a reflection of the social environment and the political situations that were around. The people I got to meet who were singing folk music were also activists who were deeply involved in their society.
“I like to think of myself as someone who was enriched by the sense of social care and responsibility that, say, Pete Seeger embodies. The accent for me is on the music, but whether it’s blues, spirituals, bluegrass or whatever, the music was the real soundtrack to people’s lives. That whole approach to music, of using it to get through difficult situations, using it to invigorate and inspire people, is pretty integral to me.
“I’ve really become aware of how powerful music can be in building bridges, in helping to tell people that they are connected more than they are separate,” he said. “So I don’t separate my musical career from the fact that I am a citizen of the world, doing what I can to make it a better place.”
* Eric Bibb performs tonight at the San Juan Capistrano Regional Library, 31495 El Camino Real. 7 and 9 p.m. $6; $3 for children 12 and under. (949) 248-7469.
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7db2f1b8a9e355a25cd3c503f7b24a78 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-mar-06-mn-14508-story.html | S. Korea Tries to Take Care of Its Own With Domestic Adoptions | S. Korea Tries to Take Care of Its Own With Domestic Adoptions
South Korea, which pioneered inter-country adoption after the Korean War nearly half a century ago, has been dramatically cutting back the number of children it sends overseas each year.
Adoptions have dropped from a peak of more than 8,000 in 1986 to about 1,800 in 1998, and the government wants to phase them out entirely.
South Korea, once the No. 1 source of foreign-born children adopted by American families, has sunk to a distant third, behind Russia and China.
The deliberate change in policy, aimed at encouraging domestic adoptions, was motivated in part by embarrassment that an increasingly prosperous country was sending so many of its children away. Yet the policy has come under renewed focus for two reasons: Domestic adoptions have not caught on as much as hoped, and the number of abandoned children has soared since a financial crisis knocked South Korea into a severe recession in late 1997.
Even before the crisis, many abandoned children languished in institutions for years, caught in legal limbo. Although they were deserted, they could not be put up for adoption because their families did not sign waivers.
There are now 17,000 children in public orphanages throughout the country and untold numbers at private institutions.
Domestic adoptions by Koreans, while on the uptick, are still rare in this society that clings to patriarchal bloodlines: 1,412 Korean children were adopted within Korea last year. Older and handicapped children are particularly difficult to place domestically.
The government “doesn’t want to sell the children overseas, but they don’t want to do anything about them either,” said Park Young Sook, a private citizen who has formed a network of families who take neglected children into their own homes at their own expense. Such foster homes are rare in Korea.
Virtually the only Korean children being sent overseas for adoption these days are infants born to unwed mothers. Korean families are given first priority in adopting such babies, and about half those sent overseas have handicaps, were premature or have other special needs, said Lee Hyon Ju, spokesman for Holt Children’s Services in Seoul, one of four agencies that handle foreign adoptions in Korea.
The Holt agency began when an American couple, Harry and Bertha Holt, blazed the inter-country adoption trail by adopting eight South Korean orphans in the 1950s after the Korean War. There are now well over 50,000 adoptees from Korea in the U.S.
Since the Seoul Olympics in 1988, however, South Korea has set a goal of reducing the number of children it sends abroad.
“There was much criticism that we must take care of our own,” said Lee, the spokesman for Holt, which also handles domestic adoptions. The country set an unofficial quota of about 2,000 children a year for overseas adoptions and aimed to halt them altogether by 1996.
The goal was not met, however. Now, the government is striving to reduce overseas adoptions by 3% each year until they are eliminated, said Lee Chang Jun, deputy director of the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s Infant Nursery and Child Welfare Division.
Lee said racism was one of the issues that led to the new policy.
“I’ve met many parents of U.S. adoptees, and I get the feeling the child is lucky to have gone to foreign parents,” Lee said. “But if you look different and there is racism [overseas], if it’s possible, it would be better to give the children to parents who look similar, with the same skin color and same culture.”
Susan Cox, a spokeswoman for Holt’s U.S. arm in Eugene, Ore., applauded the Korean effort to encourage domestic adoptions. “It is a good thing,” said Cox, who was adopted from Korea when she was 4 years old.
But, she added, “the objective is for children to have families. Children shouldn’t have to wait forever for that to happen.”
Many U.S. families would be open to adopting older children from Korea, said Margie Perscheid of Virginia, who has adopted Korea-born children and founded a support group known as Korean Focus for Adoptive Families.
“It’s difficult not to sound like vultures hovering over,” Perscheid said. “But there’s clearly a desire to help if children need families.”
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4ce4778ea0c7a1a68eef4368e191bf30 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-mar-09-fi-15344-story.html | The One That Got Away : With ‘Doug,’ Nickelodeon’s Loss May Be Disney’s Gain | The One That Got Away : With ‘Doug,’ Nickelodeon’s Loss May Be Disney’s Gain
Viacom’s hyper-competitive chairman, Sumner Redstone, wasn’t happy to learn recently that Walt Disney has an animated movie version of the children’s animated TV series “Doug” coming out this month.
It still sticks in the media mogul’s craw that Viacom’s hip family label, Nickelodeon, dropped the ball three years ago and let Disney get hold of one of its top-rated programs and coveted kids’ franchises.
The result is sweet vindication of sorts for Disney, whose pockets Nickelodeon had picked for years when it came to children’s programming. If the movie is successful, the “Doug” franchise could be worth more than $100 million to Disney.
When Nickelodeon failed to exercise its option to order 13 new episodes of the show after the first 52, Disney snapped up the franchise in early 1996 by making a multimillion-dollar deal with the show’s creator, Jim Jinkins, and his partner, David Campbell. The arrangement included buying the partners’ New York-based company, Jumbo Pictures, for about $5 million in cash and signing them to five-year contracts, with stock options, to be Disney executives.
The deal was finalized about seven months after Disney first announced plans to buy Cap Cities/ABC. In its first season, the renamed “Brand Spanking New Doug” series (since called “Disney’s Doug”) became the cornerstone and highest-rated new program on ABC’s Saturday morning lineup. In its second season, it’s a key contributor to making the network No. 1 in Saturday morning ratings.
Although Nickelodeon retains the right to distribute the original 52 episodes it financed--which still air on Viacom’s United Paramount Network and in syndication--Disney bought the Doug trademark and rights to all future products in all media, including publishing and merchandising.
Bill Gross, a former talent agent who is Jumbo’s senior vice president and general manager, said Jumbo is building the licensing “really slowly.” Disney has active licenses with Mattel for plush toys, with plans for games and puzzles. In addition, negotiations are underway with interactive game companies for “major game publishing,” Gross said.
Gross also said that Jumbo has an “aggressive” publishing program with Disney’s Buena Vista Publishing Group. In conjunction with “The First Doug Movie"--which opens in theaters March 26--there will be a storybook featuring new characters and a 30-minute live stage show at the Disney/MGM Studios Themepark Tour in Florida.
Like the TV series, the movie follows the misadventures of a quirky and imaginative 12 1/2-year-old named Doug Funnie and his friends, who face real kid issues as they grow up.
In a phone interview from their production headquarters in New York City, Jinkins and Campbell talked about the origins of “Doug,” how Nickelodeon let the franchise get away and how excited they are to be executive producers of their first movie.
Since he created “Doug” in the mid-1980s, “a lot of miracles have happened,” said Jinkins, explaining that the character did not originate as a TV personality but rather was the result of “me doodling and amusing myself in a very, very bad year.”
That year--1984-85--his career as a graphic designer and performer “dried up,” a relationship failed and he suffered a sports injury.
“This character kept reoccurring--my alter ego--and he wasn’t a cute 11 1/2-year-old. . . . There were some very dark things,” said Jinkins, who later would base some “Doug” adventures on his own childhood in Richmond, Va. Although the series “is not autobiographical, emotionally it’s very accurate,” he said.
It was Campbell, whom Jinkins met at church when they both moved to New York in 1979, who prompted his friend to transform Doug from doodles and cutouts into a children’s book prototype.
“It was a brilliant suggestion of mine that got turned down by all the New York publishing houses,” said Campbell, who began his career in theater in New York.
Jinkins, who had worked at Nickelodeon as an on-camera performer and artist on such early shows as “Pinwheel,” set up a meeting with a Nickelodeon executive named Vanessa Coffey to show his book, “Doug Got a New Pair of Shoes.”
Before he could even finish his pitch, recalled Jinkins, “she looked at the cover, looked at me and ran out of the room saying, ‘Hey, this guy is the real deal. I want to take him to pilot.’ ”
When Nickelodeon’s then-president, Geraldine Laybourne, signed off on “Doug,” Jinkins and Campbell teamed up and formed Jumbo Pictures, with underwriting from the cable channel to produce the series.
The deal called for Jumbo to make 65 episodes, which Nickelodeon would pick up at its option in blocks of 13. The first half an hour aired in August 1991, and while the show was very popular, Jinkins said it was not a “runaway hit that exploded into pop culture” like Nickelodeon’s other two animated shows, “Rugrats” and “Ren & Stimpy.”
After delivering 52 “Doug” episodes by 1994, with the expectation that Nickelodeon would order the additional productions, Campbell said, “it came as a real big shock to us that we weren’t doing the last 13 shows.” The partners said although the reasons given were somewhat vague, they were aware that “the show was expensive, and apparently there was some sort of fiscal freeze on at Nickelodeon.”
Nickelodeon had a two-year window when it could reverse its decision. In the interim, Jinkins said, “we scrambled,” developing and producing other series, including Nickelodeon’s “Allegra’s Window.”
The partners said whenever “Doug” generated interest during those two years--and there was “serious interest from ABC” (before Disney’s acquisition), they would inform Nickelodeon, with hopes it would step up.
Not long after Disney announced it was buying ABC, Dean Valentine, then head of Disney TV and Disney TV Animation, met with Jinkins and Campbell in New York, then followed it up with a meeting in Los Angeles with the Jumbo partners and Disney chief Michael Eisner.
Valentine, who now works for Viacom’s UPN, quipped, “If I knew how my life would turn out, I would have done things differently.”
Disney offered the partners “the security of buying our company,” said Jinkins, “and Michael Eisner’s vision of what he wanted to accomplish for children’s animation was in sync with what we wanted.”
At a follow-up lunch with Eisner, Disney Studios chief Joe Roth offhandedly suggested that “Doug"--which was being written as a made-for-video movie--go out as a theatrical feature, but nobody paid much attention.
Then two things happened last Thanksgiving. Paramount/Nickelodeon’s animated feature “TheRugrats Movie” opened to great success and went on to gross roughly $100 million in the U.S. And Roth took home a first-cut cassette of “Doug” to watch with his 10-year-old daughter. She loved it.
“We had been racking our brains how to generate more theatrical product out of the Disney line,” Roth said.
Although “Doug” may not have the drawing power of “Rugrats,” it has the potential to be very profitable for Disney, given that it cost only $5 million to produce and will probably cost an additional $20 million to $25 million to market.
Disney expects that if the film grosses $40 million domestically and sells 4 million videocassettes, the company could stand to make a profit of $75 million or more, depending on how it performs internationally.
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)
Disney’s Doug
“Doug” is a key component of “Disney’s One Saturday Morning” lineup on ABC between 7:30 and 9:30 a.m.--and has helped make the network No. 1 in Saturday morning ratings. The results of February sweeps for Saturday morning children’s programming:
*--*
Program Network Rating Power Rangers Lost Galaxy Fox 5.5 Disney’s One Saturday Morning (8:30 a.m.) ABC 4.6 Disney’s One Saturday Morning (8 a.m.) ABC 4.5 Pokemon WB 4.5 Godzilla Fox 4.4 Disney’s One Saturday Morning (9 a.m.) ABC 4.3 Batman Beyond WB 4.1 Spider-Man Fox 3.8 Power Rangers Playback Fox 3.5 The Magician Fox 3.5
*--*
Notes: Includes network broadcasts only. Size of survey group is 39,430,000. Children age 2 to 11 are the prime sales demographic for children’s programming.
Source: Nielsen Galaxy Explorer
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3db8aa029fe82ac77317852541e03ea4 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-mar-14-bk-17995-story.html | What Really Happened During Those 11 Hours at the Ritz-Carlton | What Really Happened During Those 11 Hours at the Ritz-Carlton
People lie, certainly. People forget. People make mistakes. One difficulty in following the narrative of the past year’s scandal--which is both utterly frivolous and the gravest threat to our constitutional system in living memory--is that the major characters are not, and as it turns out, never have been, President Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. They have always been, it is now clear beyond question, Linda Tripp and Kenneth Starr. Tripp, Starr and the office of independent counsel have made every effort to conceal this long, intense connection. Lewinsky, perhaps more than most people, thinks she is the main character in any narrative in which she plays a part. As a result, “Monica’s Story” by Andrew Morton does not add much to our understanding of it. Morton refers constantly, as does Lewinsky, to her “insecurity,” her lack of “self-worth” and “self-esteem,” as an explanation for whatever happens to her. What is more credible, and vastly more interesting, is her astonishing force of will, her single-minded, ineluctable, even imperious, determination to get her way. Someone more easily daunted would never have managed, for example, after 10 months--during which the President, his secretary and virtually everyone else in the White House was trying to ward her off--to make her way to the President again. Her sole argument for returning, for constant meetings, conversations, reproaches and demands, was that in early April 1996, when she was transferred from the White House to the Pentagon, the President had “promised” to bring her back to a White House job “after the election.” (Never before can the breaking of an alleged campaign promise have had consequences of this kind.)
If Lewinsky were more attuned to rejection, less determined to prevail, she would, on the other hand, have detected from Tripp’s bored inflections, her bossy and steering remarks disguised as questions, her tolerance for endless (and somewhat scolding) repetition of details Tripp claimed not to remember, that Tripp was an informer. Which, of course, she was, it now seems fairly obvious, from the first. Neither Lewinsky nor Morton makes a connection between Tripp and the office of the independent counsel quite that early. Since they think what they have is a love story, they cast Tripp as just an envious treacherous rival who betrays Lewinsky in the end. On Starr and his deputies, however, they have it right: They add detail to Lewinsky’s already powerful testimony, before the grand jury, about the circumstances of her 11-hour detention, on Jan. 16, 1998, in Room 1012 of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, by nine prosecutors and FBI agents from the office of the independent counsel. It is the only time the book comes to life.
I
One major strategy of the office of the independent counsel has always been to generate misinformation and outright falsehood in such confounding mass and lurid detail that by the time any one instance, large or small, has been detected, the discovery seems pedantic. Who cares? The news, as lascivious as the independent counsel manages to keep it, has moved on. Allegations of a rape, for example, once denied under oath, are revived (in response to the now infamous range of inquiries and pressures by the independent counsel) and shown in secret to members of Congress, then made public. The recantation (in every possible forum, in the midst of an impeachment) of the earlier sworn denial is said to be “reluctant” and to “have no motive” other than “ending the lies” or setting the record straight. A new inquiry is called for, and so on.
The story with Starr and Tripp at the center is quite different. On Jan. 12, 1998, Tripp was interviewed, at her request, by prosecutors and FBI agents. Until that week, she testified, under oath, before the grand jury, “I had never even thought of the independent counsel in my wildest dreams.” This, as it happened (and as the prosecutor had every reason to know), was false. By January 1998, Tripp had, in fact, been the independent counsel’s eager and enthusiastic witness in at least four prior investigations, going back four years. If it seemed plausible that Tripp’s testimony on this point was, in some sense, accurate that, having come forward to testify in Filegate, Travelgate, the Vincent Foster suicide and Whitewater investigations (some of which were ongoing throughout the period of her contacts with Lewinsky), she somehow never thought of approaching the special prosecutor with her concerns about what she heard from Lewinsky but set out, rather, for personal reasons, to do the taping on her own, then the prosecutors had a legal obligation to call that discrepancy immediately to the grand jury’s attention. The reason they let this testimony pass is not just that no one (least of all, perhaps, the grand jurors) would have believed it for a moment. It is that any explanation would have revealed the long connection between Tripp and the OIC. It would have led as well to the matter of the tapes. Members of the grand jury asked Tripp, time after time, and in spite of constant interruptions and diversions by the prosecutor, what had prompted her to tape Lewinsky. Tripp’s answers never quite persuaded them. (It was in the course of responding to this line of inquiry that she made the “never,” “in my wildest dreams” reply.) If the prosecutors had disclosed, on the spot, as they were legally obliged to, how long and in how many capacities Tripp had been working for them, the grand jurors would have known, as they seemed to suspect, why and for whom she made her tapes.
Another subject the grand jurors tried, in spite of all sorts of diversions by the prosecutor, to explore, was the events of Jan. 16, 1998, at the Ritz-Carlton, where Lewinsky was being detained, for all those hours, at the “invitation"--as one of the prosecutors subsequently put it, in a sworn affidavit--of agents of the FBI. There is no question that the events at the Ritz-Carlton marked a turning point. The stories--of Tripp, and Starr, the tapes and, it turns out, the Paula Jones case--had always overlapped. On that night, the stories openly converged. It became crucial for the independent counsel either to secure--by whatever pressures--Lewinsky’s cooperation, or to dispatch Tripp to a meeting with the Jones attorneys and risk disclosure of the OIC’s long (manifestly illegal and improper) involvement in that case. To understand the events of that night one must begin somewhat earlier and choose among competing narratives.
II
If the prosecutors are to be believed, Tripp was a loyal and “apolitical” White House employee under both the Bush and Clinton administrations. In August 1994, she was transferred to the Pentagon, where in 1996 she met Lewinsky. In early 1997, she heard Lewinsky’s account of a relationship, nearly a year before, with President Clinton. By Oct. 3, 1997, she had become so disturbed by this account and so certain that she would be called as a witness, to testify about Lewinsky’s relationship, in the Paula Jones case, and so alarmed that a “perjury trap” would await her when she told the truth about that relationship, that she felt she must “arm” herself “to protect my integrity” and tape what Lewinsky said.
Tripp had once testified (before the Alfonse D’Amato Whitewater hearings in 1995) about her “background in undercover operations.” If the prosecutors are to be believed, it was however a New York literary agent, Lucianne Goldberg, who introduced her to the whole notion of tape-recording. Goldberg, in fact, seems to appear at every crucial junction of the prosecutor’s narrative. When Tripp decided (as Goldberg advised her to) that she ought not to wait for the Paula Jones attorneys to approach her but to get in touch with them herself, it was Goldberg who called this lawyer or that, who in turn called another lawyer, who was a friend of one of the Jones attorneys, who then made contact with Tripp. In January 1998, it was Goldberg, who, by way of her “elves” (a network of apparently timid but self-important right-wing lawyers), learned how to get in touch with the office of the independent counsel and imparted this important information to Tripp. In this version of the story, Goldberg appears at times to be running not just Tripp, but the Jones case, the OIC and the press.
If the prosecutors are to believed, Tripp first got in touch with them on the evening of Jan. 12, 1998. Four prosecutors and agents immediately raced to Tripp’s house, where within two hours (between 11:15 p.m. and 1:15 a.m.), they not only learned the contents of an unsorted 24 hours’ worth of tape recordings but appraised their reliability and knew precisely what information was missing from them. They were thus able, on the spot, to grant Tripp immunity, to equip her (without any apparent legal authorization) with a body wire and to suggest a line of questioning, to fill in the gaps, in time for a lunch Tripp would have with Lewinsky at the Ritz-Carlton later that day. They had providently rented a room to monitor the conversation. On the basis of their tape of this conversation, the prosecutors were able within hours to assure both the attorney general and a three-judge appellate court that they had evidence of a pattern of bribery and obstruction of justice on the President’s behalf by Vernon Jordan, similar to a pattern that they thought they had detected but failed to prove in a matter related to Webster Hubbell and Whitewater. The urgency of their request (for expanded jurisdiction to include Lewinsky and the Jones case) consisted, they said, in the fact that (essentially because of Goldberg) a reporter, Michael Isikoff of Newsweek, had the story. The attorney general, fearful of Newsweek and aware that the three-judge appellate court had in any case appointed Starr and remained remarkably supportive of him, yielded. The appellate court granted jurisdiction readily.
The result was Lewinsky’s ordeal and her finest hour. Starr testified under oath before the House Judiciary Committee and assured the attorney general, the three-judge appellate court and the press that he had, before Jan. 15, 1998, no contacts with the Paula Jones case. Goldberg herself made similar remarks that caused journalists to pore over minor discrepancies (whether Goldberg called this particular lawyer or that, perhaps a few days earlier) as though there were any degree of separation between the OIC and the Jones case. As it turns out, there was none. Starr also said, under oath before the House Judiciary Committee, that “it never crossed our minds” that, on the night of Jan. 16, 1998 (while his deputies and agents were detaining Lewinsky), Tripp would go straight to a meeting with the Jones attorneys to brief them about the contents of her tapes. One of Starr’s deputies, Michael Emmick, even elicited from Tripp (on her last day before the grand jury, when he was trying to clean up his record and his case) testimony that the prosecutors could have had “no inkling” that she would go to such a meeting.
Not only had it not remotely crossed their minds where Tripp might go or what she might do there, Starr said that nothing occurred, on Jan. 16, 1998, at the Ritz-Carlton that was not sound, lawful, prosecutorial practice. The hotel’s rooms, he said, were pleasant and “commodious.” Lewinsky was free to call her lawyer. There was no violation of any constitutional right or statute, no intent to “overbear the will.” One of the prosecutors who filed affidavits in a related matter said that both Lewinsky and her mother had even thanked him for their treatment of Lewinsky. Several of these affidavits by prosecutors and FBI agents contain the sentence, “Because I have prepared this affidavit for a limited purpose, I have not included everything I know about matters concerning Monica S. Lewinsky,” which suggests a certain unease. Basically, however, that is the prosecutors’ version: If the prosecutors can be believed, however, their behavior with Lewinsky was routine and proper; their case and the Jones case were distinct. Near midnight, Lewinsky left the Ritz-Carlton, as according to Starr she had been free to do since 11 a.m., when the FBI agents first issued their “invitation” to her. The OIC had simply caught Lewinsky, Starr testified, in the middle of a “serious crime.”
III
In fact, the prosecutors’ predicament, on Jan. 16, 1998, when Tripp lured Lewinsky into their midst and they detained her, was this: They had nothing and they knew it. The matter had become extremely urgent. Lewinsky had, it is true, signed an affidavit in the Jones case; her attorney, Francis Carter, had mailed it. It had not yet arrived, however, and had therefore not yet been filed with the court. She could still withdraw, amend or change it. Carter, if she were permitted to speak to him, would doubtless have seen to it that she did. Lewinsky, in other words, had not committed any felony. Unless they isolated, misinformed, threatened and intimidated her, she would not commit one. The President, moreover, had not yet testified in the Jones case. His deposition was scheduled for Jan. 17, 1998, the following day. If he were alerted, it was clear he would be especially careful about what he said. So the prosecutors from the OIC were left with the alarming possibility that none of their targets would commit even an arguable crime. They kept telling Lewinsky that she and her mother faced jail if Lewinsky did not agree to become their agent, and agree to be wired, for recording conversations with Vernon Jordan, Betty Currie and the President. They told her, as they had told the attorney general and the three-judge appellate court, that the matter was an emergency, “time sensitive”, “a window of opportunity” was closing. When she was not “sobbing” or “staring off into space,” Lewinsky kept asking to speak with her attorney. They did not let her call him. They suggested other attorneys. She must make her decision. Their deadline, as it happened, was truly urgent; contrary to what they had told the attorney general and the appellate court, however, it had nothing to do with Isikoff. It was imposed by a deal Tripp had made with the Jones attorneys, which required that she brief them “before the President’s deposition"--in other words, within the next few hours.
If Tripp, by then undeniably their agent, had not told them about that deal, they had another utterly reliable source: the Jones attorneys. Of course, Tripp did tell them: The source of their urgency was in fact the deadline in Tripp’s deal. Among other things the officers and agents of the OIC do not mention, in their affidavits about the events of that night at the Ritz-Carlton, is that they had rented a room for Tripp in that same hotel. As she waited for the outcome of their session with Lewinsky, she had stayed in touch by phone with the Jones attorneys. When Starr said it “never crossed their minds” that Tripp would brief those attorneys (and Emmick said they had “no inkling” she would do so), they were trying to conceal not just that Tripp’s arrangement with the Jones attorneys was dictating their schedule but how close their contacts with that case already were. There is the question for instance how they even knew that Lewinsky had signed her affidavit. They could not have learned it from the court, since the affidavit had not yet arrived. They could not have learned it from Tripp either. Lewinsky, as it happened, had lied to Tripp--to the effect that taking Tripp’s advice, she had not yet signed an affidavit in the Jones case and would not sign it, until the President, through Vernon Jordan, had found her a satisfactory job. Tripp, in other words, did not know that the affidavit was already signed. How, then, did the prosecutors know--not just whether it was true or false but that Lewinsky had signed it? The answer is this: Carter, Lewinsky’s attorney, had five days earlier informed the Jones attorneys, as a courtesy, of the contents of the affidavit and sent them a copy of it. The Jones people told the office of the independent counsel, with whom they had been working all along.
On the whole, the prosecutors would have much preferred not to rely that night on Tripp. The risk that their contacts with the Jones case would come to light was just too great. So they must bully, taunt, threaten and, not least, crowd Lewinsky. At least four prosecutors and three FBI agents, over a period of 11 hours, in and out, and sometimes standing in the doorway, of two hotel bedrooms, does reduce the degree to which Lewinsky’s accommodations can be described as “commodious.” (One wonders why there had to be so many prosecutors and agents if they did not intend, as Starr said they did not, to overbear her will.) They tried, in terrorem, to coerce her into becoming (like Tripp) their agent; they pressured her to record conversations in hopes of gathering evidence against the President. All this, Starr has publicly, indignantly and under oath, denied--unaware perhaps that some of his deputies, in sworn affidavits in a sealed court proceeding, had confirmed it. Lewinsky refused to be wired. They had to use Tripp after all. As the deadline of the President’s deposition approached, they sent Tripp off to her rendezvous with the Jones attorneys. It did not have to cross their minds “remotely”: One of their agents drove her there.
IV
Why does it matter? “You never, ever, ever commit perjury,” Starr said in an interview with Diane Sawyer. He spoke at length to her, as he had to the Judiciary Committee, of his devotion to the law and to the truth. Tripp, under oath before the grand jury, spoke repeatedly of her “integrity” and her inability to bring herself to lie. Such is their dedication to the truth. By the time any particular element of their story comes apart, however, there is already another story. In her testimony before the grand jury, for example, Tripp discussed at length her friendship, in 1993, with another employee at the White House, Kathleen Willey. She makes it very clear that she was Willey’s confidante, that they plotted together to promote Willey’s relationship with the President, that they composed notes and selected gifts for him, that Willey solicited and welcomed the President’s embrace, and that they later consulted about where it might be safe for Willey and the President to conduct an affair. In short, the relationship Tripp described was very like her relationship with Lewinsky. (For all we know, Tripp was taping even then.) But this version does not comport with what Starr’s office now wants to present as Willey’s story: a coarse and unwelcome embrace, virtually a sexual assault, which Willey, astonished and appalled, resisted. So Starr has indicted for perjury a witness who does not confirm Willey’s testimony. When Tripp was asked, in an interview by Larry King, whether Willey’s present story is true, she replied, “Absolutely.”
The OIC, apparently ready to threaten even Tripp herself, has announced an investigation of what it chooses to characterize as signs of “duplication” in her tapes. In fact, the tapes show signs of extensive doctoring; it is by no means clear by whom. Their integrity in virtually every respect--their content, their sequence, their presentation in the independent counsel’s own report--is extremely doubtful. But the likelihood is that the prosecutors want to keep Tripp under control. They had always tried to conceal, from the grand jury and from the volumes of their Communication and Referral, not just her prior work for the OIC but her real motives and ideological affinities. At one point, when the grand jurors asked again about her motives for taping, Tripp said that she had felt “physically threatened,” that there were already “40 bodies,” victims of the Clinton Administration: “I have seen the list.” One might have thought such a list would have led the prosecutors to inquire further. Certainly, it was in their jurisdiction. Perhaps not surprisingly, they let it pass.
The virtual eradication, however, of traces of the OIC’s real relationship with Tripp lies elsewhere. In the documents of the Senate Whitewater Hearings of 1995, for example, there is an FBI report of an interview with Tripp, on April 12, 1994, in the offices of the OIC. In all the volumes of the Communication and Referral, however, including its extensive FBI reports (which cover in considerable detail both her biography and her intended testimony), there is no mention whatever of this, or any other previous OIC report. It is inconceivable that the April 12, 1994 report does not exist in the files both of the independent counsel and the FBI. In the whole Starr report, however, there is no mention of any such prior report, interview or file. The almost inescapable inference is either that the report’s 1998 FBI reports were laundered to expunge any mention of the 1994 interview, or the FBI agents interviewing Tripp were instructed to omit any reference to it. (An investigation of what became of these files, and why they were concealed from the grand jury, the House and the Senate, is surely overdue.)
V
There was never, there is not now (as Sidney Zion, among others, has pointed out), a credible legal case against Lewinsky. She never required immunity. She never, in other words, needed to give those volumes of detailed testimony to the grand jury--or even to turn over that dress. Without Lewinsky, the special prosecutor had nothing whatsoever. Tripp’s tapes proved only that it was Tripp who encouraged Lewinsky to think she could resume her affair with the President and who worked hard on strategies to get her there; Tripp, who suggested that she contact Vernon Jordan for help in finding a New York job (when Lewinsky already had an offer for a job at the United Nations); Tripp, who urged her to hold out for a higher position, higher pay and to refuse to sign an affidavit unless the grade and job were high--Tripp, in short, who did everything to promote relations between Lewinsky and the President and to construct what might, if Lewinsky had taken her advice, have been a genuine obstruction of justice. In one particularly malevolent communication near the end, Tripp told Lewinsky that she had learned, from “Kate,” a friend at the National Security Council, that Lewinsky was blacklisted at the White House and would never get a job there; Lewinsky had better renew and raise her demands for employment in New York. The “Kate” in question denied, under oath, that she had ever heard or said anything of the kind. Before the scandal became public, she said, she had never heard of Monica Lewinsky.
But here one begins to see what is pernicious. One pattern in the office of the independent counsel has been to summon witnesses and compel their testimony on matters--like the emotional and sexual lives of other people--of which they can have no personal knowledge and about which prosecutors have no right, under our system, to inquire; then, to threaten these witnesses with charges of perjury if their testimony does not meet prosecutors’ needs. Some people are eager to oblige, with endless gossip about friends, neighbors and associates. Others would resist but do not know how. The legal costs of resistance are very high. In addition, there is sometimes the threat--for which the office of the independent counsel is now notorious--to open inquiry on some other front: the legality of an adoption, say, or possible anomalies in billing a partnership or paying income tax. Even the administration of nursing homes has not, after all, in the past, been altogether scandal-free. Everyone, in short, is vulnerable to inquiries and pressures of this sort.
To get any sense of the independent counsel, who has made so many millions in his private capacity, spent so many millions more in his public capacity and incurred such enormous expenses for any witnesses he indicts, you have to look at the written record. To get a sense of Tripp, her motives and her contribution to the plot, you need to hear the actual tapes. (It was precisely to conceal from the grand jurors almost everything about Tripp that the prosecutors did not present the tapes themselves but only read, in their own voice, excerpts from them. It must have been extremely odd, perhaps somewhat comic, to hear Tripp’s lines and Lewinsky’s in the voices of Michael Emmick and Stephen Binhak.) To get a sense of Lewinsky, one has to see her--on television or elsewhere. Her personality, her charm, her occasional savviness either come through or not. One learns nothing about her from the book.
In a story with, so far, no heroes, Lewinsky’s signal vindication was to refuse to be wired. The volumes of testimony in the independent counsel’s disgraceful Communication and Referral to the House Judiciary Committee documents the gross prosecutorial abuses and deliberate violations of statutory and constitutional limits in those 11 hours at the Ritz-Carlton. Morton’s book adds to our understanding of that night. When Lewinsky speaks of the “fear” she and her mother experienced, one tends at first to doubt her--particularly since she seems unmistakably to take a certain pleasure, both in the limelight and in the story that she tells. Then it becomes clear that, however melodramatic the expression of that fear may have been, its basis was absolutely genuine. The pernicious aftermath of the entire affair has been this: not just the obvious undermining of trust, in the Presidency, elected officials and, for that matter, judges. Not even just, through the relentless generation of sensational, and therefore “interesting,” misinformation, the subversion of sanity and of caring whether anything is true or not. But this: The notion that it is the business of government to inquire into people’s intimate lives, and of citizens to go (whether out of fear or malice or exuberance or for any other reason) to the government with testimony about the intimate lives of other people--even to wire themselves to record conversation for testimony of that kind--has never been the way, in this or in any other free country. People have had, in the past, no reason to fear that their friends or family or intimates or former intimates will, or even can, betray their confidences to prosecutors. The scandal and the danger is that until the Starr ethic is emphatically repudiated, people now have ample reason for that fear.
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8a837ccb8de4e38a5e4a1fe003e26853 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-mar-24-fo-20383-story.html | The Soul of Fairfax Avenue | The Soul of Fairfax Avenue
Sixty-odd years ago, when Boyle Heights was a Jewish neighborhood and Canter’s restaurant was on Brooklyn Avenue, Dean Zellman would stop in at the deli for his usual: a corned beef or pastrami sandwich and an egg cream. He would settle into one of the booths with his Uncle Al, or sometimes he would get a lunch to go for his father, who ran Zellman’s Menswear across the street.
Today, of course, Canter’s has long since moved to Fairfax Avenue and Zellman’s is the last of the original Jewish stores in Boyle Heights. But that doesn’t stop Dean Zellman from wishful thinking: “I could go for a corned beef sandwich right now on a Kaiser roll!”
For the record:
12:00 AM, Mar. 28, 1999 For the Record Los Angeles Times Sunday March 28, 1999 Home Edition Food Part H Page 2 Food Desk 1 inches; 21 words Type of Material: Correction In the cover photo accompanying the story on Canter’s, “The Soul of Fairfax Avenue” (March 24), Harold Price was on the left and Alan Canter on the right. PHOTO: (Harold Price was on the left and Alan Canter on the right.) PHOTOGRAPHER: IRIS SCHNEIDER / Los Angeles Times
Really, who couldn’t?
When Canter’s moved to the Fairfax area in 1948, transplanting those salty Eastside deli smells, it was joining a demographic shift that had begun a few years earlier. Fairfax Boulevard between Melrose Avenue and Beverly Boulevard was becoming the new Jewish hot spot. The history of Canter’s can help explain how Los Angeles’ Jewish community adopted Fairfax as home.
Alan Canter, son of one of the original Canter’s owners, started as a pickle packer and delivery boy in the Fairfax store. Now 62, he remembers when small businesses lined the street and how a neighborhood developed, thanks to heavy pedestrian traffic.
Now, the Fairfax scene reveals bumper-to-bumper cars crawling past boarded-up businesses and fewer people on the street.
Where Ernesto Ramos, a cook for 39 years, used to get orders for such Eastern European favorites as gefilte fish, kreplach (meat- or cheese-filled ravioli) and kishka (sausage-like meat- and grain-filled cow intestines), a younger, eclectic, more health-conscious crowd now orders avocado omelets, unkosher crab salads and chicken and turkey dishes.
Corned beef and pastrami sandwiches remain tremendously popular. But people today are afraid of cholesterol and fat, Canter says.
Clearly, the old Fairfax of the 1940s had a different feel.
“It was an up-and-coming Jewish neighborhood, with plenty of room for expansion,” says 79-year-old Harold Price, Canter’s brother-in-law, who helped establish the eatery’s Fairfax location.
At the time, the neighborhood boasted Fairfax High School and the Farmers Market, the Esquire theater and Billy Gray’s Band Box, a flashy comedy club. Also: Cohen’s deli, a bakery or two and the Fairfax theater on Beverly Boulevard, which attracted huge crowds.
In the late 1930s and ‘40s, the Fairfax Jewish community kept growing as families arrived from Boyle Heights and City Terrace, Los Angeles’ Jewish centers since the early part of the century.
In 1931, before this population shift, Ben, Joe and Ruby Canter opened Canter Bros. Delicatessen on Brooklyn Avenue (now East Cesar E. Chavez Avenue), offering pickled herring and corned beef to the predominantly Eastern European, Yiddish-speaking neighborhood. Later, after a family dispute, Joe left to open the short-lived Canter and Son Delicatessen (with son Seymour) a few doors down.
William Gersh, 72, remembers meeting friends on Sundays in the original Canter’s. “It was a gathering place for Jewish Eastern Europeans,” he says.
The tradition continues. Now a Fairfax Canter’s regular, Gersh meets 76-year-old Salomon Flatowicz for breakfast and a glass of seltzer water five days a week. They always sit in the same back booth and usually order a platter of lox, whitefish and smoked cod with cream cheese, bagels, lettuce, tomatoes and onions.
For the older generation of folks who had established businesses downtown, the streetcar system made commuting between the east and west ends of town easy. Lynn C. Kronzek, author of “Fairfax: A Home, a Community, a Way of Life,” writes that it became increasingly possible to seek “upward, yet affordable, mobility.”
So in 1948, Ben Canter and his best friend, Hymie Fisch, bought property on Fairfax Avenue: two connecting storefronts that became the new Canter’s location. Their children ran the business--this time designed as a combination restaurant, deli and bakery--at 439 N. Fairfax, next door to where Schwartz Bakery stands today.
The original Canter’s hung on in Boyle Heights until the early 1970s, but over the years, many of its Brooklyn Avenue neighbors, including Leader Barber Shop, moved to Fairfax too.
In 1953, Canter’s moved into the Esquire theater building at 419 N. Fairfax and became a 24-hour restaurant, one of the first in the city. In 1959, it expanded north, buying out Cohen’s deli next door. And in 1961, the Kibitz Room opened as a cocktail lounge that has attracted all sorts of scene makers through the years, from Jim Morrison to Courtney Love.
On a morning visit to Canter’s, it’s easy to see why customers keep returning and employees never seem to leave: It is a home away from home. The food may have changed a bit, the street may appear unkempt, more diners may show up with neon-colored hair, but Canter’s still offers a comfortable dining environment.
Bruce Cooper, a 30-year-old motion picture writer, sits in his favorite booth twice a day, five days a week, for breakfast and lunch. Waitress Helga Fields knows he’ll want toast and coffee to start, then maybe a fruit cup or Danish, a heel of rye or matzo ball soup. Usually, he’ll stay for two or three hours while he writes. He says he likes to eat at Canter’s because it’s kept its older image.
In fact, that’s what almost everyone says, from 82-year-old hostess Phyllis St. James to the kitchen help. It still has that warm haimish, or home-like, feel.
After celebrating its 50th anniversary on Fairfax last year, it seems to have finally found a permanent home.
“I think it would be almost impossible to duplicate,” says Alan Canter. “It’s too unique.”
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218130ab1cf6fb41f4b170219e3ab90e | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-mar-25-sp-20958-story.html | Zezel’s Refusal to Report Voids Deal | Zezel’s Refusal to Report Voids Deal
Add another chapter to the Ducks’ book of moves that backfired.
Believing they had added depth at center for the stretch drive and the playoffs, the Ducks were left empty-handed after a trade with the Vancouver Canucks was voided Wednesday.
Peter Zezel, obtained for a late-round draft pick only hours before Tuesday’s noon deadline, refused to report to the Ducks because he wished to be by the side of his terminally ill 3-year-old niece in Toronto.
Zezel was in Toronto by Wednesday afternoon and could not be reached for comment.
Pierre Gauthier, team president and general manager, on Tuesday told Zezel to take all the time he needed before reporting. They spoke again Wednesday and Zezel insisted he was not joining the Ducks under any circumstances.
“He called me and he was totally honest,” Gauthier said. “It’s actually better this way. It’s better that it’s resolved before we played any games instead of having to wait through the weekend for him to decide he’s not going to report.”
The impact of Zezel’s refusal to join the Ducks certainly won’t be as dramatic as the organization’s decision two years ago to dump Ron Wilson as coach and to replace him with Pierre Page. Page was fired after only one season and replaced by Craig Hartsburg.
But Zezel, 33, would have given the Ducks another dependable center. Zezel, who has 219 goals and 389 assists in 873 games, could have played between all-star wingers Paul Kariya and Teemu Selanne. He also could have played on the checking line.
“As far as our team goes, we’re going to go with our guys,” Gauthier said. “Our objective was to go with our guys, so we’re fine. We’ve said all along that we were going to build up our team and our chemistry. Our team is well prepared.”
Gauthier said he was aware of Zezel’s personal situation before the trade was completed and was not concerned about what fans might think about the Ducks coming away with nothing.
The Phoenix Coyotes, St. Louis Blues and San Jose Sharks--the Ducks’ closest rivals in the fight for fourth place in the Western Conference--each made significant moves before Tuesday’s deadline.
“Vancouver was totally open with us in terms of saying that this guy has a family situation,” Gauthier said. “How could they know he wasn’t going to report? It’s not us, it’s the player who decided this. There’s no trade. It’s like the trade never materialized.”
In fact, Zezel told a Vancouver newspaper Tuesday he believed he made it clear to the Canucks that he did not wish to be traded.
The Canucks said they were informed by Zezel’s agent only that the 15-year veteran of seven NHL teams was “having a tough time and didn’t know how a trade would affect him.”
Said Dave Nonis, Vancouver assistant general manager: "[Mike Gillis, Zezel’s agent] never said, ‘Please don’t trade him. He’s not going to report.’ This was not a sinister plot to screw Peter Zezel. It’s a guy we’re not going to have any use for at the end of the year and we tried to find a place for him to play.”
Brian Burke, Vancouver general manager, has offered to buy out Zezel’s contract.
“I will pay off Peter Zezel’s salary and he can go home as far as I’m concerned. And I’ll match that amount to charity,” Burke said.
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ced1128d80ff3ddc5c927a6b5b2db564 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-mar-30-fi-22412-story.html | Deal Cements MGM’s Bond to 007 Franchise | Deal Cements MGM’s Bond to 007 Franchise
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. on Monday agreed to pay $5 million for a license to kill any attempt by Sony Pictures Entertainment to make a James Bond movie.
The amount is the net sum MGM will pay to Sony to cement its rights to one of Hollywood’s most valuable film franchises, as well as to obtain from Sony the rights to the classic Bond story “Casino Royale,” the only Bond film rights MGM didn’t already own.
The deal resolves pending lawsuits in which MGM and Danjaq, the production company involved in making the Bond films, sued Sony after the studio announced in October 1997 that it planned to make its own Bond films.
Insurance companies for Sony will pay MGM $5 million to resolve the lawsuit challenging its rights to make and distribute a Bond film domestically. MGM in turn will pay Sony $10 million, some of it also covered by insurance, to keep the company from making any Bond films internationally and get the rights to “Casino Royale.”
Unlike the rest of the Bond films, 1967’s “Casino Royale” was not an action-packed adventure but rather a poorly received spoof featuring David Niven, Woody Allen and Peter Sellers. It was released by Columbia Pictures, now owned by Sony. Buying the rights means that MGM can potentially remake the picture.
Sony touched off the furor with MGM in 1997 when it announced it was striking a deal with Kevin McClory, who once collaborated on a screenplay with the late Bond author Ian Fleming that Fleming eventually turned into the novel “Thunderball.”
MGM and Danjaq cried foul, suing Sony over the rights and claiming McClory had no legal standing with the James Bond character. Making the lawsuit even more bitter was the fact that Sony chief John Calley previously headed MGM’s United Artists division, where he oversaw the successful rebirth of the Bond franchise with actor Pierce Brosnan in 1995’s “GoldenEye.” MGM at one point alleged that Sony had misappropriated trade secrets stemming from Calley’s tenure at the company.
After suing, MGM further strengthened its claim to the Bond rights by renewing a deal for all Bond novels with Fleming’s estate. It also acquired the rights to a “Thunderball” remake distributed by Warner Bros. in 1983 called “Never Say Never Again.”
McClory, who claims he has rights and that his copyright has been infringed, was not a party to the settlement. His plans are unclear, lawyers for both sides said.
David Steuber, a lawyer representing Sony, said that a ruling earlier this month by U.S. District Judge Edward Rafeedie clearing Calley of disclosing secret information about the Bond franchise was important in paving the way for a settlement.
In a statement, MGM Chairman Frank G. Mancuso said: “The end of this case reaffirms that James Bond resides at one address--that of MGM and Danjaq, his constant home for the last 37 years.”
The James Bond franchise is considered one of the film industry’s crown jewels and is the single most valuable asset held by MGM, which is owned by billionaire Kirk Kerkorian. MGM will release, through United Artists, the next Bond installment in November, “The World Is Not Enough,” starring Brosnan and Oscar winner Judi Dench.
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d085ac3e2d4f2386eff472e149e03e47 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-may-01-mn-32969-story.html | Elderly Bank Robber Not Ready for Rocker | Elderly Bank Robber Not Ready for Rocker
At 78, Forrest Silva Tucker apparently wasn’t ready to become just another Florida retiree enjoying the nightly early-bird special.
Twenty years after he escaped from San Quentin prison in a crude kayak, Tucker was captured and accused of robbing a bank earlier this month.
He didn’t go quietly.
Police had had him under surveillance even before the holdup April 22 in Pompano Beach. On the day of the robbery, they were waiting for him at his wife’s home. When he arrived, he led deputies on a high-speed chase before crashing into a palm tree.
In his car, deputies found more than $5,500 in cash from the robbery, a sawed-off assault rifle, two stocking masks, pepper spray, a police scanner and a New York detective badge.
“He looked like he just came off the golf course,” said Lt. James Chinn. “You’d more expect to see him go to an early-bird special than robbing banks.”
In fact, six weeks before his arrest, he underwent surgery for arrhythmia, or an irregular heartbeat, Tucker told deputies.
Chinn said Tucker was the reputed leader of the Over the Hill Gang, a group of elderly men who robbed banks and stores in Florida in the 1980s.
Tucker was jailed pending arraignment Wednesday.
His criminal record goes back to 1936, when he was arrested at 15 for stealing a bicycle.
In 1979, Tucker was serving a 10-year robbery sentence at San Quentin when he and two inmates escaped in a kayak made in the prison wood shop.The two other inmates were caught within months.
Tucker remained on the loose until 1983, when he was arrested after a shootout with the FBI in West Palm Beach and charged with stealing more than $374,000 from a Boston bank. He took three hostages during the shootout and was captured after he collapsed from blood loss from four gunshot wounds. He was convicted a year later and released from prison in 1994.
Authorities didn’t realize that he still had time to serve in California.
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9a7feceb27048aeaeeb708004d81dcd1 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-may-03-ca-33551-story.html | ‘Rugrats,’ ‘All That’ Win Kids’ Awards | ‘Rugrats,’ ‘All That’ Win Kids’ Awards
“Rugrats” and “All That” were the big winners at Nickelodeon’s 12th annual “Kids’ Choice Awards” honoring youngsters’ favorite programs, movies and celebrities.
“All That” picked up honors Saturday night in Westwood for favorite TV show and favorite TV actor for its Kel Mitchell, while the “Rugrats” TV show and movie were voted favorite cartoon and favorite movie, respectively.
Rosie O’Donnell hosted the ceremony at UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion, where awards were given out to youngsters’ favorites in 17 movie, television, music, sports, book and video game categories.
Favorite group honors went to ‘N Sync, while favorite singer went to Will Smith. Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore were voted best actor and actress, respectively.
Jonathan Taylor Thomas won this year’s Kids’ Choice Hall of Fame award.
A record 6.2 million votes were cast at Burger King restaurants nationwide and via toll-free call-ins during Nickelodeon programming and through Nickelodeon Online and nick.com.
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76093e4ae90d0a55e06b3dae33d6958e | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-may-06-mn-34515-story.html | Selling Teachers on School Reform | Selling Teachers on School Reform
Huddled around a conference table in a fancy Seattle hotel, America’s most reform-minded teachers union bosses sounded more like crusading politicians than advocates for the rank and file.
Why not tie teachers’ raises to their ability to pass demanding tests? Even better, fire slackers who can’t cut it. Or, most radical of all, pay teachers based on how much their students learn.
Until recently, union leaders had been loath to even whisper such ideas.
“In the past, being a union boss was like being a defense attorney. If you molested kids or were incompetent, my job was to get you off the hook,” said Adam Urbanski, director of the Teacher Union Reform Network, a group of progressive union locals that held one of its regular meetings last fall in Seattle. “That’s not flying anymore.”
Indeed, unions nationwide are negotiating contracts with provisions that link teachers’ skills to their pay. They are developing training programs to improve the skills of veteran teachers. In New York, Cincinnati and elsewhere they are helping administrators shut down failing schools and evaluating colleagues who are not making the grade.
Selling such ideas, however, can be a challenge. Teachers worry that their economic interests are being downplayed to serve a political agenda designed to improve the union image, while administrators often regard union reforms as encroachments on management powers. Many administrators also doubt that the types of reforms supported by unions--which sometimes carry a hefty price tag--will lead to gains in student achievement.
There is reason for skepticism. The results of union reform efforts have been difficult to document. Even members of the reform network say they are frustrated by the slow pace of change.
“We’ve been talking about these issues since 1986,” said Don Whatley, president of the Albuquerque Federation of Teachers. “But very little of it has had any effect on teaching and learning in the classroom.”
Still, Whatley and others say unions cannot afford to retreat to their old patterns of confrontation, lest they find themselves losing customers and jobs, as the auto, rubber and steel unions did in the 1970s and 1980s.
Polls of parents and voters show growing support for alternatives to the public schools, such as charter schools, which are usually not unionized and operate free of most state and local regulations, and voucher programs.
“We’re losing market share; the customers are bailing,” said Day Higuchi, president of United Teachers-Los Angeles. “So we need to say, ‘What are the roots of the problem?’ ”
Teacher Quality a Major Problem
Teacher quality is widely recognized as one of the biggest problems confronting schools today.
In Rochester, N.Y., where Urbanski has long been a leader in the reform movement as president of the union local, teachers judged unsatisfactory by supervisors do not get scheduled raises. Conversely, a contract provision calls for top teachers who earn an extra credential as a reading teacher, or who agree to be deployed in a low-achieving school, to receive a $1,500 annual bonus.
In Boston; Columbus, Ohio; and elsewhere, unions have agreed to campuswide bonuses based on a school’s performance.
“The major impact” of the bonuses, said teacher compensation expert Allen Odden of the University of Wisconsin, “is to focus people on the mission of the system.”
Employing another strategy, the California Teachers Assn. invested nearly $2 million to develop a class on how to teach children who are not native English speakers. Six hundred teachers have completed that 45-hour course, and nearly 1,000 more are currently enrolled.
The union in the San Juan Unified School District outside Sacramento has worked with the school of education at the local Cal State campus to create a master’s degree program to develop the skills teachers need to help reform their schools.
Finally, it has become commonplace for mentor teachers to assist less experienced colleagues. Now more unions are agreeing to have teachers evaluate the work of their colleagues and recommend dismissal of poor performers.
But many teachers fear that the reformers are drawing attention away from what they contend is a bigger problem--a lack of books, supplies and other resources.
The idea of acknowledging that some teachers are doing a lousy job is “a defensive posture, and it’s not going to work,” said Los Angeles teacher Joshua Pechthalt, a vocal critic of the union local. “It’s not going to deal with the problems of the public schools, and it’s going to erode solidarity among their own members.”
Ed Doherty, president of the Boston Teachers Union, agreed that he and his peers must be careful not to get too far ahead of their members.
“The membership will not tolerate a union not concerned about salaries and sick days,” he said.
Still, he said, union leaders must persuade their members of the importance of improving schools. “It really is our responsibility,” Doherty said.
Plans Can Carry Hefty Price Tags
Union-led reforms are not always greeted warmly by politicians either. In Seattle, the union has proposed lengthening the school year by 40 days and requiring new teachers to prove their skills or move on. But that plan carries a hefty, $60-million price tag and is meeting resistance from the Washington Legislature.
In Cincinnati, the school board has decided to trim programs--considered national models for how to professionalize teaching--to close a $20-million budget shortfall.
The board has decided to scale back a “career ladder” that pays bonuses of as much as $5,000 to master teachers. The district’s highly regarded peer review program, which last year recommended the dismissal of 13 rookie teachers and four veterans, also is shrinking.
The bottom line, said Cincinnati Supt. Steven Adamowski, is that “student achievement has not improved.” He acknowledges that an overly centralized district administration is an obstacle to reform, and is working to change that. He also says the rigid regulations of the union contract must be changed as well.
But Sandra Feldman, president of the 1-million-member American Federation of Teachers, calls the notion that unions are roadblocks to reform “the big lie.”
Indeed, under the leadership of Al Shanker, her union was among the earliest to call for more demanding academic standards, charter schools, tougher discipline for students and the creation of national certification tests for teachers.
More recently, the federation has been an influential voice touting widespread research showing the importance of phonics in early reading instruction.
The other national teachers union, the 2.4-million-member National Education Assn., got on the reform train more recently.
Soon after he became president of the organization in 1997, Bob Chase called on the group to take risks to improve schools. For example, he said, the union should drop its longtime opposition to peer review programs.
‘You Don’t Gain . . . Support by Whining’
In the past, Chase said, teachers unions were vulnerable to attack because they were inveterate naysayers.
“You don’t gain public support by whining,” he said in an interview. “You get public support by not being defensive and by supporting things.”
His union recently added 12 experts in teaching to its national staff to help members. And, with the teachers federation, it has sponsored conferences for new teachers on discipline techniques.
Chase said his union is still pushing bread and butter issues and trying to raise the salaries of teachers, which average $42,000 a year. But, he said, “we hesitate to talk about it because people say, ‘Oh, there they go again.’ ”
Teachers unions in Michigan, for example, are among the most militant in the country, and the teachers there are the highest paid, averaging nearly $59,000 a year. But the Michigan Education Assn. has been defeated time and again in legislative battles by Republican Gov. John Engler.
Michigan now has 150 charter schools, a longer academic year and a ban on paying teachers who go on strike.
“The teachers got so blinded by their hatred for the governor that they almost couldn’t see reality,” said John Trescott, Engler’s spokesman. “They do have to rethink their approach if they hope to have an impact on the process.”
Former California Gov. Pete Wilson regarded the California Teachers Assn. as a stubborn obstacle to reform. During his eight years in office, he successfully diverted funds that could have gone for teachers’ salaries to textbooks, computers and smaller class sizes. But he was unsuccessful in ending teacher tenure.
Aware of its reputation, the California union in the last two years has softened its rhetoric and embraced some of the school reform measures pushed this winter by Gov. Gray Davis. The union has even endorsed the creation of more charter schools, but with an important caveat--the group is pushing legislation requiring those schools to unionize.
For all the talk at the national and state levels about the need for unions to be partners in reform, contracts get negotiated at the local level. And, on that score, Urbanski said, the record is mixed.
“There are indeed places in this country where the teacher unions are leading reform--that’s the good news,” he said. “But the bad news is they are the exception, not the norm. In at least as many places as they are leading reform, they are blocking reform.”
In Los Angeles, the powerful UTLA has done some of each.
The 40,000-member organization has insisted that new teachers without a credential get a full week of training before entering the classroom and is negotiating with the district to set up professional development centers.
The union also negotiated a 15% raise for Los Angeles teachers who complete the rigorous process of becoming certified by the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards. Last year, 47 Los Angeles Unified School District teachers gained that status, and nearly 200 are preparing to take the certification exams later this year.
But last fall, the union moved wages to the top of the agenda when it launched a “raise the raise” campaign seeking a 4% salary boost in the middle of a three-year contract. Because of its clout on the Los Angeles Board of Education, the union was able to get a 2% raise while agreeing only to limited teacher accountability measures. Just a handful of teachers, those judged unsatisfactory by principals, will be subject to peer review.
Yet even that concession generated opposition within the union and undercut support for President Higuchi. He was recently elected to a second term but with only 57% of the votes, an unusually low figure.
“I think the union is looking at these big, fancy reform issues, and they’re not paying attention to the bread and butter,” said Warren Fletcher, who unsuccessfully challenged Higuchi for the presidency.
Since getting reelected, Higuchi has been sounding much more strident. He is already gearing up for negotiations next year, demanding a 30% pay raise and promising “no contract, no work.”
Learning From Craft Guilds
Elsewhere, reformers are urging bolder steps.
Susan Moore Johnson, dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, analyzed contracts in districts across the nation and concluded that administrators often refuse to implement some of the most progressive provisions. On the other hand, she said, unions have continued to insist on seniority provisions that let teachers choose where and what to teach.
Such policies “really do stand in the way of reform,” she said.
The foundations that support the work of the Teacher Union Reform Network are becoming impatient and have begun pushing for more decisive action. The organization, founded in 1995 and based at UCLA, consists of 21 locals, including those in Los Angeles and New York.
Ed Reidy, a program officer with the Pew Charitable Trust, one of the network’s supporters, said unions could learn a lesson from the craft guilds of the past, which controlled their membership through apprenticeships.
“Unions could say tomorrow that, from here on out, we take teacher quality very seriously and you can’t become a full member unless you meet certain standards,” he said. “I don’t think they’re there yet.”
Peter Martinez of the Macarthur Foundation is also looking for the reform network to become more aggressive.
“They’ve got to bite the bullet on setting up a good system for letting bad teachers go,” he said. “It needs to be clear to everyone that, if you are good, you’re going to be rewarded for that.” And, if not, you won’t have a job.
As director of the network and president of the Rochester union, Urbanski understands those concerns.
Rochester schools began experimenting with reforms in 1986.
Teachers there were among the first to be given decision-making power over their schools and to agree that teacher leaders ought to earn more for taking extra responsibility. And they were among the first to be asked to evaluate struggling peers.
Yet, for all of that, the district’s academic achievement has not been sufficient to persuade most middle class residents of the city to keep their children in the public schools.
Last month, Urbanski, with the backing of his union, proposed something more radical. He wants every campus in the district to have an opportunity to become a charter school free of the central office rules. He also wants such schools to be free to toss out the union contract.
Urbanski hopes that the teachers would still turn to his union for help in negotiating a contract, for teacher training, for help in obtaining grants and other services.
“We’re putting our reputation to a test,” he said. The bottom line, he said, must be what best serves the interests of children.
“We believe that if the kids do well, we’ll do well, and if the kids don’t do well and we do, this community won’t, nor should they, tolerate our doing well,” said Urbanski.
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)
Teacher Compensation
Although teachers unions are under pressure to take the lead in crafting school reform, salaries remain a top priority for them. Unions nationally and in California have succeeded in winning steady pay raises over the past 15 years.
Teachers are paid less than those in some other fields, according to these 1996 national averages. But teachers work an average of 37 weeks a year.
Teacher: $37,594
Assistant professor, public university: $39,000
Accountant: $41,444
Buyer: $46,662
Computer system analyst: $58,529
Engineer: $61,613
Attorney: 65,472
Professor, public university: 69,760
Sources: American Federation of Teachers, National Education Assn.
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95b7662c5d72c95b2a5c637e10c705d4 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-may-07-ca-34695-story.html | She’s a Little Bit Country | She’s a Little Bit Country
Meet Eileen, a 33-year-old country music fan who is sick and tired of all these slick Shania Twain clones. Shaking her head, she asks how the next Willie Nelson or Loretta Lynn can possibly be discovered in this era of pure pop disguised in western wear.
“Cookie cutter,” is how Eileen describes the new Nashville mind-set. “They discourage any kind of originality. If there was a young George Jones out there, he might never get a chance.”
Meet Eileen Twain, better known to the world by the stage name Shania. She’s a country star who sounds and sells like a pop singer, but as a fan she longs for Nashville to rediscover the twang and hickory heart that enthralled her as a child.
“As a listener, there’s not a lot of country music today that I like,” said Twain, who opened a three-night Southern California swing Thursday at the Hollywood Bowl, with dates tonight in Chula Vista and Saturday at the Blockbuster Pavilion in Devore. “The classic country is what I prefer. It’s just beautiful songwriting.”
These opinions might shock members of Nashville’s old guard; it’s no secret that many purists view Twain as a prime force behind the pop push in their genre. But that’s nothing new for the Canadian singer. She may be a titan in the country music industry, but she remains somewhat of an outsider and enigma.
To Twain, the logic is as simple as a Johnny Cash lyric: She grew up singing country songs but never associated it with the boots and belt-buckle scene. Her music is a true synthesis of her wide-ranging tastes, which she says makes her as authentic as any other artist.
“I grew up in freakin’ Timmins, Ontario,” she says. “I’m not a cowboy. We had snowmobiles, not horses.”
Twain is the first female artist in any genre to sell 10 million copies of back-to-back albums, and by most accounts she is the first great video star of country music. That success, she says, is from shedding the view that country music is limited to fans in rural America.
“I’m proof you don’t have to be of the cowboy culture to enjoy country music,” she said.
Twain, who lives in Switzerland, drives a German car and cites a Briton (Sir Elton John) as her favorite performer, says country music should be as international as rock ‘n’ roll. She also views the pop music landscape as a land without borders.
She says the country songs she learned as a child and has performed on stage since age 8 are her “musical soul,” but she did not pledge her heart solely to the genre. She also grew to love John, Stevie Wonder, Abba, the Bee Gees and the Carpenters and even flirted with Def Leppard and AC/DC.
Her youthful career made her a seasoned stage performer by the time she arrived in Nashville nearly a decade ago, but the songs on her demo tapes veered all over the musical map.
“People said, ‘You have to decide what you are, either pop or country or rock or R&B;,’ but I couldn’t make up my mind,” she said with a chuckle. “And in the end I didn’t have to. I wound up doing a little bit of everything. And it’s wonderful.”
There have been a lot of apologies coming from Nashville powers these days, Twain concedes with a self-conscious smile. Success breeds agreement, after all, and it’s hard to argue with Twain’s commercial success. She still has an edge in her voice, however, when asked if her artistic credibility is now recognized.
Twain is well-versed in country music history and she bridles at the idea of Nashville insiders believing her pop sensibilities and foreign passport mean she’s ignorant about country music.
“They’re out there trying to find artists who are true and real and they’re getting singers who just got out of college and have probably never listened to a Tammy Wynette album in their life,” she says. “But because they’re from, oh, Texas or something, they have a license to be considered a country artist and I don’t. I don’t get it.”
The crossover success has made Twain huge in a relatively short time. The first of her three albums came out in 1993 and featured only one of her own songs. That self-titled debut got little attention, with one notable exception: rock producer Mutt Lange (AC/DC, Foreigner, Bryan Adams) was smitten by the young singer’s voice and photo. The two met, became collaborators and, in a matter of months, married.
Their labors led to “Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under?” and a string of other hits off her 1995 sophomore effort, titled “The Woman in Me.” In all, songs from the album would spend well over 100 weeks on the country singles charts--all without touring.
She managed to eclipse those accomplishments with her most recent album, “Come On Over,” which earned her two Grammys and produced her signature song, a ballad of devotion titled “You’re Still the One.” That song was perhaps more comfortable on pop stations than on some country music playlists, and it clearly introduced her to a vast, general fan base.
Lange’s polished production and co-writing abilities have prompted speculation in many quarters that Twain is a mere instrument, not a creative force in her own music. She sharply dismisses that notion. “We’re each strong where the other is weak,” she says, somewhat distantly. “We’re great partners.”
A Striking Presence
in Music Videos
Lange does not do interviews, according to his manager, but another veteran of the rock world who works with Twain said the singer clearly possesses talents that go far beyond her voice.
“She is a wonderful artist, very thoughtful with a lot to say,” says her manager Jon Landau, famous for guiding Bruce Springsteen to stardom. “She has a real vision and she works tirelessly to realize it.”
Twain’s vision may be most powerful in the realm of videos. The current tour is her first, but the 20 videos she has made--a very large number for an artist with only two hit albums--have captured the attention and imagination of her fans.
“She’s the preeminent country music video star, definitely,” says Chris Parr, programming director for the CMT music channel, which reaches 42 million U.S. homes. “She’s the most prominent, most visually impactive artist on the country scene. . . . Her image is as important as her music.”
Her videos are dramatic and stylized, whether they show her vamping in a tight leopard-skin outfit in the desert or cavorting in an elegant evening gown among dusty cowboys in a roadside cafe.
Twain has become the cover girl of country music--indeed, Cosmopolitan magazine named her the “fun, fearless female of the year” for 1998--and the videos may be the key reason. She says the glamour in the videos, however, have very little to do with her true persona.
Leaning forward on a plush couch in the sprawling suite of a Beverly Hills hotel, Twain says glamour and luxury are trappings she still finds somewhat foreign. She is a very wealthy woman, of course, but she considers herself durable and non-flashy, like her well-worn blue jeans.
She has not learned to spend money on superfluous luxury, she admits in a voice suggesting that is a weakness. A day earlier, she passed on a purse during a shopping trip because it was $500. She recently bought her first expensive car, a BMW Sportster, which will replace a creaky GMC Jimmy. Her husband fought her plea to pass on the BMW and buy a used car instead.
Twain says she is “really working” on enjoying wealth, but she finds it difficult to think of money as a currency for fun. The reason is Twain’s background, a life that, as has often been pointed out, seems to be pulled from one of those old hard-luck country ballads that Twain loves to hear but never seems to sing. Her parents were of modest means, and in rough times the family hovered near poverty. Twain and her four siblings went without meals and a grim shadow often hung over the household’s future. The money Twain made as a child singer often helped pay the rent.
At age 21, while on the road performing, Twain got a call and her life was upended: Her parents had been killed in a car crash. She became the sole support for her three younger siblings, and her career was sidetracked.
The role of celebrity has required Twain to be candid about these events, which she says she does not resent. Even here Twain has taken criticism; some have questioned whether she overstated the facts of her background to milk sympathy. Like her music and her stage persona, her personal life was subject to a credibility check. If anything, she has responded, she has understated the facts of her past.
“There are people in the Nashville industry that will never like what say or what I do,” she says.
She makes that declaration with an easy shrug that suggests she could not care less what her critics think. Yes, she says, she is in a wonderful spot in her life, a fact that is in sharp focus when viewed through the lens of her past. “I’m soaring,” she says. What if this turns out to be the peak moment her career, a bar that is set too high to reach again? “That would fine. Really, that would be OK.”
Petite and private, Twain in person seems far smaller than her video personas--which veer from ethereal beauty to lusty underwear model, and she answers that, yes, that is her “stage Shania.” The “at-home Shania” loves cooking, playing with her dog and kicking around in sweats. Her stage persona loves “running around and feeling fun and sexy,” but real life, she points out, is “not a music video.”
The videos have defined Twain, which is a mixed blessing. To fans, they show she is a beautiful, curvaceous woman whom the camera loves. To critics, they bolster the thought that she is all sizzle and no substance, a pop singer who, as far as country music credentials are concerned, is all hat and no cattle.
The singer describes herself as “a control freak” when it comes to the videos--not just as a performer, but in the editing and concept process--and other aspects of crafting her persona, but she also claims to be powerless when it comes to fighting the marketing machine. Glossy, sexy eye candy sells music these days, she says, and she is in the business of selling.
“Of course it looks slick and glamorous and wonderful,” Twain says with a growing edge in her voice. “That’s the nature of it. That’s marketing. None of us can escape it. If I could do it without all that I’d love it. It’s a lot more work. I’d rather just be the artist and not have to be the star.”
* Shania Twain, with Leahy, today at Coors Amphitheatre, 2050 Otay Valley Road, Chula Vista. 7:30 p.m. $26-$66. (619) 671-3600. Also Saturday at Glen Helen Blockbuster Pavilion, 2575 Glen Helen Parkway, Devore. 8 p.m. $25-$65. (909) 886-8742.
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7acc0b05446c43201873cb0d524235b2 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-may-09-mn-35378-story.html | At 96, Foster Mom of 162 Says Goodbye | At 96, Foster Mom of 162 Says Goodbye
A half century later, she still remembers the frightened faces of the first two children.
The girl was crying, red-eyed and puffy-faced.
The boy was scowling, and he flinched when she tried to unclasp a pin holding together the summer coat he wore that wintry day.
It was March 1948, and Vashti Risdall, already a mother of four grown kids, was eager to fill the emptiness of her rambling six-bedroom house. So she made a call.
Soon a social worker came knocking. And, at 45, Vashti became a foster mother.
That first night, she recalls, both little ones were too scared to eat, so she cuddled the girl to soothe her. The boy wouldn’t be touched--he wore his coat and shoes to bed and clutched a paper bag tightly. Don’t push, she thought. And she didn’t. The next morning, he relaxed a bit.
Shortly after, Vashti opened a brown spiral notebook and wrote:
1. Margaret. Two years old. Blonde. Blue eyes. A real nice little girl.
2. Robert. Four years old. Brown-eyed. Light brown hair. Very shy. Took a great shine to Pop [her husband].
“It was the beginning for me,” Vashti recalls.
The two stayed for months. But soon the notebook had names of new foster children who came, then left the Risdall home.
One book filled up, then another.
One decade passed, then another.
Before she knew it, it was December 1998. Vashti was a great-grandmother--and, at 96, still a foster mother.
It was time to call it quits, though she hated to do it.
It was time to close the notebooks.
By then, her list of children had 162 names.
Some were a few weeks old, some a few months shy of adulthood. Some were disabled and couldn’t walk or talk, some wouldn’t sit still. Some tried to run away, some didn’t want to leave.
But over Vashti’s decades of foster parenting, they all knew her as Mom. For one boy, it was official: He was adopted.
“Those 50 years went by so fast, I can hardly realize it,” she says, her voice a wistful whisper. “Sometimes I say I didn’t grow up, because I just enjoyed those children. I really did. Even the bad ones weren’t bad.”
In recent years, Vashti cared for disabled adults who had lived with her for decades. “I thought I’d die before I stopped,” she says.
But nature finally prevailed.
Vashti suffered a stroke a few years ago, her eyes are failing and her legs are slower. Still, her memory, wit and will remain strong and, even at 96, she would have continued had her 74-year-old daughter, Ardis Armstrong, not put her foot down.
But she too understands her mother’s sadness.
“It’s the end of a career,” says Armstrong, who helped Vashti with the children for many years. “It’s the end of a way of life.”
It began as a partnership between Vashti and her husband, Arthur, an easygoing World War I veteran she married when she was just 17. Clearly, though, taking in kids was her idea.
Six months, tops. That’s how long Vashti thought it would last.
But six years later when Arthur died, the door was still open. Living with her youngest son, Dean, who was physically handicapped, she continued to welcome an ever-changing brood, sometimes to the stares of disapproving neighbors.
It was an era when Dr. Benjamin Spock was guiding millions of mothers and fathers, but Vashti needed no advice in handling orphans or kids whose parents couldn’t--or wouldn’t--raise them.
She had her own brand of child psychology: Once she hid two brothers’ shoes during winter so they wouldn’t run away; another time, she talked a foster son out of leaving.
But she also knew when silence was best.
“You never, never, never talk about the families unless they want to tell you something,” she says. “It’s not a pleasant thing . . . and it’s none of my business either.”
Some nights, after diapers and dirty dishes, laundry and ironing, baths and homework, she’d tuck kids in their Army bunk beds, reassuring them that they’d see their parents again.
But some afternoons she’d watch them “hardly leave the window all day, thinking Momma’s coming--and she doesn’t come.”
Her house, she decided, had to be a refuge, no matter how long kids stayed.
“Home has got to be pleasant,” she says matter-of-factly. “Home is peaceful. If something happens outside, they have to come in and know Mom is there. She’s not going to slap them; she’s not going to be mad at them.”
“She always put herself in the child’s place,” her daughter says. “She always thought, ‘Why does that child feel bad? What would I do?’ ”
The years provided answers, and steeled her for unnerving moments.
One night she discovered a foster son walking down the street, sneakers smeared with grease, clutching crumpled papers dipped in grease and the neighbor’s back porch “nicely in blaze.” The damage turned out to be minimal, but the news made the paper.
“Police arrested a 7-year-old boy,” says a yellowing story from 1954, clipped inside one of her notebooks. It adds this detail: Vashti put out the fire.
“I spanked him,” she recalls. “What could I do? You couldn’t put him in jail.”
There were other troublemakers, but Vashti doesn’t dwell on negatives. “I can laugh about almost anything,” she says, her heavy-lidded eyes lighting up, a calm, knowing smile deepening the creases in her face.
“Vashti remembers the good in life,” says Kathy Cullen, a social worker in Ramsey County, which honored her recently for her foster-care service.
Vashti has another explanation: “I think God has been with me all the way.”
And the reality is, most misdeeds she encountered were decades ago and relatively harmless. There’s a Bedford Falls-like innocence when she recalls her boys pushing a Coke vending machine out of a building or taking cars for joyrides.
As Vashti pages through her notebooks, each name has a story:
There was Del, No. 73, who took his $200 from his paper route and ran away with a friend to Chicago, where they dyed their hair, then headed to his uncle’s farm in Michigan.
“You can’t blame him for wanting to find some relatives,” Vashti says.
There was Shirley, remembered with this notation: “Called me more plain and fancy names than I’d ever heard in my life.”
There was Pete, a boxer, who became a paratrooper before a violent end noted in another faded newspaper clip: He was shot and killed while trying to rob a gas station.
Vashti, of course, was notified of his death. “Pete had no other home,” she says.
Then there was Leonard, who arrived in his late teens.
“He came to us one day and said, ‘Mom, you’ve got to adopt me. I just have to belong.’ ” Months later, he became a Risdall. Leonard died a few years ago of cancer.
A handful of the 162 kids didn’t work out and left. But most, she hated to see go. And each time one was adopted or joined the military or was reunited with family, she cried.
“I got to thinking, this has got to be selfish,” she says. “I said, ‘Do I think I’m going to be the only one who’s nice to that child . . . ? Of course, that person who wants them is going to be nice . . . and I can’t keep them all.’ So I had to talk myself out of that or I would have gone crazy.”
But, she adds: “Every one that left, left a little empty spot in my heart.”
Sentimental to this day, she has saved ink-smeared report cards, handwritten lists of inoculation dates, dogeared growth charts. She recalls the corner in her dining room where she rocked an autistic girl with croup long ago and the exact words of a social worker who deposited a boy with cerebral palsy at her door and asked that he be walking in six months.
“Give me a year,” Vashti replied. He left walking.
“She never asked of a child what a child couldn’t give,” says Cullen, the social worker. And she always gave of herself.
Cullen remembers a foster-parent support group meeting a few years ago when someone told the 90-something Vashti, “Now is the time in life to sit back and relax.”
No way. There were more children to help.
Since the 1970s, she raised disabled children who grew into adults under her roof.
Jo Ann, a 41-year-old with cerebral palsy, came from an institution at age 13 and remained for 10 years.
“She was a fantastic mother,” she says. “She treated me like a person. She was just there for me.” Once, she recalls, Vashti, then in her 70s, knew she adored wrestling, so they attended a match where, Jo Ann says, “I screamed so loud that I lost my voice.”
They now talk almost daily. “I consider her my mother,” Jo Ann says.
Carl, who arrived as a 4 1/2-year-old in restraining straps and harness, stayed 27 years. Now 36, he owns a house, works as a janitor and, for Easter, brought Vashti home-cooked ham. “I just let him grow up,” Vashti says.
Mary, who is 32 with Down syndrome, was No. 162.
She left just before the New Year after spending nearly her entire life with Vashti.
“I cried and cried until I just shook,” Vashti says. “It’s hard now to come down to nothing.”
Though her daughter lives upstairs, Vashti is alone for the first time in her long life. Kind of.
She has 11 grandchildren and 17 great-grandchildren. And memories of 162 more.
“I don’t know if I’ve been a good mother,” she says. “I think I’ve been a friend.”
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38447b14049c95ab47dfb014ed89968b | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-may-16-sp-37921-story.html | Masters Dinner Wasn’t Always to Squire’s Taste | Masters Dinner Wasn’t Always to Squire’s Taste
Hall of Fame golfer Gene Sarazen, who died last week at 97, usually liked the champion’s dinner each year at the Masters, mainly because he enjoyed eating. But there were exceptions, such as when Tiger Woods served cheeseburgers in 1998.
Said Sarazen: “Cheeseburgers! I don’t care too much for that menu. Whoever heard of a cheeseburger as a dinner?”
He also didn’t care at all for Sandy Lyle’s choice of haggis, a Scottish dish, in 1989.
“What’s haggis anyway?” Sarazen said at the time.
Told it was minced sheep or calf organs mixed with suet, onions and oatmeal and boiled in the stomach of the animal, Sarazen paused for a moment, before deciding to order off the menu.
“I’ll have lamb chops,” he said.
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More from Sarazen: The Squire’s favorite champion’s dinner was the one in 1993 served by Fred Couples--chicken cacciatore with spaghetti on the side.
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Trivia time: When the Colorado Rockies’ Bobby M. Jones pitched against the New York Mets’ Bobby J. Jones last Tuesday, it was the first time in more than 100 years that pitchers of the same name faced one another in the major leagues. Who were the last ones?
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Better to lose: Winning is not all it’s cracked up to be, if you listen to Belgian tennis player Xavier Malisse, after playing in his first final of the year and second of his career.
“I’m really tired,” he said. “I’m not used to playing all week and making the finals.”
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One big man: Rico Petrocelli, all-star shortstop for the Boston Red Sox in the ‘60s, was reminiscing with Gordon Edes of the Boston Globe when Frank Howard’s name came up.
“Six-foot-eight, 320 pounds,” recalled Petrocelli, of the former slugger for the Dodgers and Washington Senators. “He had this jugular vein in his neck that must have been three inches wide. He had this habit [like a twitch], you couldn’t help but notice when that vein came out.
“After the game, he drank a case of beer like I drank a Coke.”
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Horsepower: Drag racer Warren Johnson has won 74 NHRA final rounds and holds the pro stock speed record of 202.24 mph with his Pontiac Firebird. He explains what it takes: “These cars run on money, not gasoline.”
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Trivia answer: John B. Taylor of Cincinnati pitched against John W. Taylor of Chicago on April 16, 1899.
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And finally: Roger Clemens is a five-time Cy Young Award winner, but Dave Stewart, the Toronto Blue Jays’ assistant general manager, is not unhappy that Clemens was traded to the New York Yankees.
“Our club as a whole feels we’re a better club without Roger,” Stewart told the Houston Chronicle. “I don’t believe Roger is conducive to winning. He’s more of a guy that’s good at accomplishing individual goals, but I don’t think he’s capable of bringing a team to a championship.
“In New York he’d be riding the coattail of a club that can do it without him.”
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e57000af576eacbb112679ce5e37158b | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-may-18-mn-38346-story.html | Robert O. Dougan; Huntington Librarian | Robert O. Dougan; Huntington Librarian
Robert Ormes Dougan, a Book of Kells scholar, bibliophile and librarian who greatly increased the Huntington Library’s vast collection of rare books and manuscripts, has died at the age of 94.
Dougan, the Huntington’s librarian for 14 years, died May 8 at Cottage Hospital in Santa Barbara. He had been a longtime resident of the Samarkand, a retirement home in Santa Barbara.
Decades before he was hired for the San Marino library, Dougan had an association with its creator, Henry E. Huntington.
After earning his bachelor’s degree in librarianship from University College in London and his master’s from Trinity College at the University of Dublin, Dougan went to work as a bibliographical researcher for T.P. Goldschmidt, a London antiquarian bookseller. One of the shop’s best customers was the American railroad magnate Huntington.
“I can take you to books on the shelves of the Huntington Library right now with my identification marks in them, marks that I made way back in the 1920s,” Dougan told The Times when he retired in 1972.
The librarian also remembered Huntington’s purchase of Britain’s famous Gainsborough painting “Blue Boy” for his San Marino art gallery in 1921. As a teenager, Dougan was among the many Britons who went to say goodbye to the treasure during its final display in the National Gallery in London. “I certainly didn’t think at the time,” he said years later, “that I was going to come and live with it.”
Born in Ilford, England, Dougan served with the Royal Air Force in Perth, Scotland, during World War II. He stayed on after the war as the city’s librarian from 1945 to 1952 and assembled two collections of rare 18th and 20th century Scottish literature for the 1951 Festival of Britain.
Dougan next moved to Dublin to become the first professional librarian for centuries-old Trinity College. There he studied the ancient 8th century Book of Kells and supervised its rebinding. He described the tome as “perhaps the most magnificently illuminated and illustrated book in the world.”
Hired by the Huntington in 1958, Dougan spent 14 years at the library’s helm, increasing its rare book collection from 215,000 titles to 295,000 and its reference collection from 147,000 books to 196,000.
Dougan, who became an American citizen in 1964, considered the Huntington “one of the greatest research libraries in the world for British and American history.”
He credited that quality to the library’s staff, telling The Times in 1972: “There is a bond of unity here which I have not experienced anywhere else. It’s as if everyone regards themselves as part of the Huntington family and are working to perpetuate what he [the founder] began.”
Dougan’s avocation was collecting some of the earliest photographs, made shortly after the medium was invented in 1839. He amassed about 1,000 prints and negatives made by D.O. Hill from 1840 to 1848, now at the University of Glasgow. The librarian’s larger and more comprehensive historical photography collection has been acquired by the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, which shares it with the city’s Museum of Modern Art and Princeton University.
Widowed by Olive McMicken and Margaret Truax Hunter, Dougan is survived by his third wife, Terry Purcell.
A memorial service is planned in the chapel of the Samarkand retirement complex in Santa Barbara at 3:30 p.m. Saturday.
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206c281c1eaa5a332be929883707897d | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-may-19-me-38764-story.html | Nasty Turn on Charter Reform | Nasty Turn on Charter Reform
Just three weeks before Los Angeles voters will decide whether to reform their city government, the campaign has turned nasty.
The Times, along with neighborhood groups, business and labor leaders, civic activists and others, has urged a yes vote on Measure 1, to adopt a new charter. It would modernize the city’s byzantine, inefficient and costly operations and guarantee neighborhood residents an effective voice at City Hall. But some on the City Council who see themselves as having the most to lose from reform have made no secret of their disdain from the beginning.
In an unsuccessful effort to derail proposals for an elected charter commission, the council appointed its own commission in 1996. No doubt some council members hoped that bickering and competition between the two commissions--and between the mayor and the council--would doom serious reform. It almost did, but in March, with a consensus proposal before it, the City Council had to put charter reform before voters, even as several members declared themselves personally opposed.
Now, a majority of the council is determined to see that Measure 1 fails on June 8. In recent weeks, the council has simply stonewalled requests from the elected reform commission to fund voter education panels that would present arguments on both sides. The absence of a real campaign in support of the measure, despite fund-raising by Mayor Richard Riordan, has meant that it’s mostly opponents who are being heard.
Apparently, intimidation is part of the game as well. Earlier this month, one city department proposed hosting a forum to discuss the new charter. When it appeared that all the invited speakers supported the measure, the department canceled the forum, since city ethics rules require that such meetings present both sides. But the council, with great indignation, still asked the city attorney and Ethics Commission to investigate. That should thoroughly chill any other city agency trying to pursue voter education.
Meanwhile, individual council members are twisting arms and making promises in a bid to bury the charter proposal. Council President John Ferraro, who had backed the new charter, has reversed himself, reportedly out of fear that charter foes on the council might try to remove him as president. Ferraro has joined the opposition and is shamelessly trying to persuade groups that endorsed the measure, including the Los Angeles Police Protective League, to back away from it as well.
These sorry antics argue more strongly than any ballot argument that change in the ground rules at City Hall is long overdue. Measure 1 would break the stranglehold the current council has on city operations, introduce accountability and ensure that the city responds to the needs of residents rather than just the politicians.
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99526b3106ce7c6fbd724ed219ea0afe | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-may-28-mn-41995-story.html | A White, White World on TV’s Fall Schedule | A White, White World on TV’s Fall Schedule
The new prime-time television season has been unveiled, and guess who’s not coming to dinner this fall.
Of the 26 new comedies and dramas premiering on the major broadcast networks--CBS, NBC, ABC and Fox--not one features a minority in a leading role. Even secondary minority characters on these sitcoms and dramas are sparse, turning the TV lineup into a nearly all-white landscape.
There are few blacks in supporting roles on the shows, and Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans and other ethnic groups are virtually invisible. And even Fox, a network that grew to prominence on the strength of shows targeted for and featuring blacks, may have only one regular black character on its entire schedule this fall.
The lack of minority characters has sent a shudder through an industry that has prided itself on being politically enlightened and progressive. Further, it is in direct contravention of network executives’ repeated pledges to increase diversity in their shows.
Tom Nunan, entertainment president of sixth-ranked UPN, whose edgier programming strategy includes several shows featuring minorities in leading and supporting roles, said the lack of diversity on the major networks has been obvious for some time but is particularly evident in the new crop of prime-time series.
“It was really glaring at the upfronts,” said Nunan, referring to the networks’ announcement of the fall prime-time series lineup to advertisers last week in New York. Advertisers, in turn, will now decide how and where to spend roughly $6.5 billion to buy advertising time in advance of the season, which begins in mid-September. “It was a shortsighted approach that they took. When you realize how valuable the African American audience can be, and also any minority audience, [inclusion] shows respect to all Americans, not just one demographic group.”
Among several high-profile shows with all-white casts are ABC’s “Wasteland,” about six “twentysomethings” living in New York City and dealing with life after college; NBC’s “Freaks and Geeks,” which features a group of teens attending a suburban high school in 1980; CBS’ “Love or Money,” a comedy about romance in an upscale New York City apartment building; Fox’s “Manchester Prep,” set at a prestigious New York prep school; and NBC’s “Cold Feet,” about three couples in various and differing stages of relationships.
At least one high-ranking studio executive, who did not want to be identified, expressed dismay about the homogeneity of next season’s schedule, especially in regard to race: “It’s an awfully white world on television.”
Doug Alligood, senior vice president of special markets for the New York-based advertising firm BBDO Worldwide, charged that the networks are operating in a “nether world” that is willfully ignorant of the growing and changing cultural landscape of the country.
“In the battle against declining ratings, the networks seem to be oblivious to demographic changes and the diversity in population,” said Alligood. “They just seem to be operating in their own world. They’re trying to revitalize something that doesn’t exist anymore. There was a real buzz after the upfronts, not only from blacks but from whites, saying, ‘What’s going on here?’ ”
In 1997, former NBC Entertainment President Warren Littlefield ordered producers of all pilot episodes to include at least one minority in the regular casts, adding that some producers resisted but relented because NBC would have final say in whether a show made the schedule.
ABC Entertainment President Jamie Tarses told television reporters last year that “I think all the networks are working on” increasing diversity. “I think we’re always looking to make the ensembles of our shows as eclectic as we can.”
And NBC West Coast President Scott Sassa said earlier this year after being hired at the network that NBC was committed to multiculturalism: “We need to make sure the shows we have on accurately represent the people viewing. . . . People like to see people like themselves on the air.”
But Tarses admitted this week that the new ABC schedule is woefully lacking in diversity and that she is looking to add more black and Latino characters to new series. And Sassa, who is a third-generation Japanese American, said in an interview that, although he was pleased with some shows, “there are others where we’re not comfortable with where we are.”
When pressed for specifics about how increased diversity would be achieved, Tarses declined, saying: “Our intention is to take aggressive steps in that area. I know what we need to do, but I don’t want to have expectations in certain situations.”
Doug Herzog, president of Fox Entertainment, downplayed the significance of the absence of series featuring minorities on the network, including his decision to temporarily bench “The PJs.” The African American animated series co-created by Eddie Murphy was both critically acclaimed and was considered a moderate hit with a loyal viewership. Herzog says he’s committed to returning the comedy to the schedule midseason.
“I would love to see diversity on the network, and I would love to have a four-year crack to deal with that,” said Herzog, who joined Fox earlier this year after running Comedy Central. “But today, all I want is the best show on the air.”
Several network chiefs said their efforts to include more minorities in their shows often clashed with securing the best creative choice for a particular role.
Said one insider about one of the new dramas that feature an all-white cast: “We really tried to include more minorities, and we tried them out in the parts, but there were cases when the person for the part was not a minority. I would tell the producer, ‘I know who I want for the part, but I know who would be best for the role.’ ”
Neal H. Moritz, executive producer of “Manchester Prep,” about a school on the upper East Side of New York, said of casting for the drama: “Whether or not to cast a minority in the show was never a conscious decision. We look at who fits the role the best for the story we’re trying to tell. In future episodes, I’m sure the cast will be integrated.”
Moritz pointed out that another show he is producing for UPN, “Shasta McNasty,” has a black lead character.
Tarses said the network was aware early in the casting process for pilots (the first episode of a proposed TV series) that the projects did not have enough multiculturalism: “We wanted to have more minorities within our ensembles, but for a myriad of reasons, we were not able to accomplish that. We made the creative decisions that made the most sense at the time for the pilots.”
Still, the inability of the networks and studios to pull from the talent pool of minorities was a phenomenon that UPN’s Nunan found mystifying, particularly given the fact that his network was able to integrate the casts on most of their shows.
“It’s really not that difficult to work it out the right way,” said Nunan. “It’s really done rather effortlessly. You just look at the best chemistry and the best actors. It’s a natural instinct for us. And it can work out to everyone’s benefit.”
The absence of diversity this season is also puzzling in the light of the success of several hit or acclaimed dramas such as “Law & Order,” “ER,” “NYPD Blue,” “Homicide: Life On The Street,” and “Chicago Hope” which have minorities in prominent and critical roles.
CBS President Leslie Moonves said that there were a number of shows featuring minorities that didn’t make it on the fall schedules. However, he pointed to CBS’ midseason medical drama from acclaimed producer Steven Bochco that will have a 75% minority cast.
Still, executives in the advertising community said that despite the rhetoric and commitments toward diversity, this year’s trend of exclusion is likely to continue.
One prominent ad buyer who declined to be identified said that the major networks really have no financial incentive to have more diversity. “They are reaching the minority audience no matter what, so they don’t really worry about trying to put more minorities on the shows,” said the executive.
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Times staff writer Brian Lowry contributed to this story.
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70cc2aea295c23d8c20201c5edc85612 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-may-31-mn-42793-story.html | Civilian Deaths in Airstrikes Erode NATO Credibility | Civilian Deaths in Airstrikes Erode NATO Credibility
Low-flying NATO bombers destroyed a bridge between two Serbian river towns Sunday, toppling cars into the water and killing at least nine civilians in a midday strike near a crowded riverfront market, witnesses said.
The attack left six people missing in the Velika Morava River and 28 injured, officials said. Some of the victims had rushed onto the span to help people wounded by the initial strike when two more bombs hit seven minutes later, townspeople told reporters at the scene in Varvarin, 90 miles south of here.
A later airstrike wounded two European journalists and killed a driver in their convoy in Kosovo--the Serbian province where NATO is trying to halt a brutal government crackdown on ethnic Albanian civilians. Serbia is Yugoslavia’s main republic.
Scenes of the wrecked bridge on television here and around the world dealt a new blow to NATO’s credibility as Western leaders were pressing to isolate Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic from his people.
The Yugoslav government, which has been trying to rally public support for Milosevic since his indictment last week by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, seized on the apparent NATO blunder as evidence that the Western alliance’s nearly 10-week-old air assault is aimed at ordinary civilians, not just their leader.
“NATO criminals picked a market day to carry out their attack,” said the newscaster on state TV, noting that Varvarin’s outdoor produce market stretches along the river near one end of the two-lane bridge.
In acknowledging that allied planes had attacked the bridge, NATO officials in Brussels said it was a legitimate target. The alliance has acknowledged killing civilians in at least 11 previous errant attacks but insists that all such casualties are unintentional. Yugoslav authorities say more than 240 civilians have died in those attacks.
Varvarin, a town of 5,000 people, is about 50 miles north of Kosovo. NATO says it has been bombing highways and bridges in the area to cut Yugoslav army supply lines into the province--the scene of 15 months of guerrilla war between the government and ethnic Albanian separatists.
“If it is a military target, why did they not hit it at night?” Dragoljub Stanojevic, the school principal in Varvarin, asked reporters at the scene as divers searched for victims.
Stanojevic said one of his former students, Sanja Milenkovic, 17, was wounded by the first bomb while she was walking across the bridge and died en route to a hospital.
Hundreds of people were in the market area at the time of the bombing, and many of them had just left Pentecost Sunday services at nearby St. George’s Serbian Orthodox Church, witnesses said. Several cars and pedestrians were on the bridge--traveling between Varvarin and Cicevac--when it was first hit at 12:53 p.m., they said.
Milivoje Ciric, a priest at the church, was among those killed by the follow-up blasts. Witnesses said he had rushed to the bridge to help the wounded. His decapitated body lay in the town morgue with those of six other men killed by the blast and that of a woman who drowned.
The bombs, launched by planes visible from the ground, sent about three-fourths of the bridge’s metal structure crashing into the river and shattered windows in the church, a hotel, a row of riverside cottages and Varvarin’s town hall.
Sunday’s bombing signaled an increase in daylight raids as NATO pressed its campaign to force Milosevic’s estimated 40,000 troops from Kosovo. A series of detonations shook Belgrade, the capital of both Serbia and Yugoslavia, at midmorning Sunday as NATO planes struck at nearby military targets.
Bombing on the 68th day of NATO’s air war also destroyed 10 houses in the Serbian town of Vranje, killing a 60-year-old man and wounding 30 other people, according to the official Yugoslav news agency, Tanjug, which reported six civilians killed by bombing Saturday.
In Kosovo, Tanjug said a two-car convoy of journalists “came under NATO fire” Sunday afternoon on a road about six miles outside Prizren.
A 28-year-old Serb driving one of the cars was killed, it said, and two journalists were wounded. One was identified as Eve-Ann Prentice of the Times of London, and the other was identified only as a reporter for Corriere della Sera of Milan, Italy. A French writer, Daniel Schiffer, also was wounded, the report said.
Early today, there were unconfirmed reports that NATO warplanes struck a sanatorium in Surdulica in southeastern Serbia, killing at least 10 people, the official Radio Serbia network said.
An errant NATO missile killed at least 20 civilians in the town in late April.
NATO is demanding deployment of an alliance-led peacekeeping force in Kosovo to ensure the safe return of hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanian civilians purged from the province this spring.
Milosevic and four top aides were indicted last week for their role in that campaign. The U.N. tribunal in The Hague accused them of murder, mass deportations and other crimes.
Instead of hardening his position, as some Western leaders had predicted, Milosevic offered a compromise Friday. He said he would accept a mixed peacekeeping force made up of commanders and troops from neutral countries and from NATO.
He also reportedly agreed, in talks Friday with Russian envoy Viktor S. Chernomyrdin, to withdraw all but about 5,000 of his troops from Kosovo--less than half the number he once insisted on leaving there.
Vojislav Seselj, a Serbian deputy premier who speaks for hard-liners in Milosevic’s ruling circle, said Sunday for the first time that he would accept foreign troops on Yugoslav soil “if that’s the price of ending the war.”
As Russia held a special Cabinet meeting Sunday to review progress toward a settlement in Kosovo, Pope John Paul II asked for peace, saying the human tragedy in the Balkans marks “a heavy defeat for humanity.”
Western leaders, who ignored the pope’s Easter appeal for a bombing pause, took Belgrade’s latest concession as a sign of weakness and said the bombing will continue until Milosevic capitulates.
U.S. Army Gen. Wesley K. Clark, NATO’s supreme commander in Europe, said the air assault has brought about a “very major change in the tone of the pronouncements from Belgrade,” setting off “frantic diplomatic efforts for a bombing pause.”
The Yugoslav leader is “not the same President Milosevic who refused” negotiations with NATO last winter, Clark said on CNN’s “Late Edition” program.
Political opposition leaders and neutral observers in Belgrade say there have been no signs that the public, or Milosevic’s coterie, is inclined to try to curtail his power. The two men in the best position to stage a coup, Yugoslav army commander Gen. Dragoljub Ojdanic and Serbian Interior Minister Vlajko Stojiljkovic, were indicted with him.
“Anti-American and anti-NATO feeling is so strong here that no Serb is likely to see this [indictment] as a just cause,” said Aleksa Djilas, a prominent Belgrade historian and critic of the government. He said blunders like Sunday’s attack on the bridge are likely to deepen that sentiment.
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)
Deadly Errors
Below are some NATO bombing mistakes and missile attacks against unintended targets since the alliance’s air war on Yugoslavia began March 24. The casualty figures come from Yugoslav authorities and cannot be independently confirmed.
April 5 -- An attack on a residential area in the mining town of Aleksinac kills 17 people.
April 12 -- NATO missiles striking a railroad bridge near the Serbian town of Grdelica inadvertently hit a passenger train, killing 17.
April 14 -- 75 ethnic Albanian refugees die in an attack on a convoy near Djakovica.
April 27 -- A missile strike in the Serbian town of Surdulica kills at least 20 civilians.
May 1 -- A missile hits a bus crossing a bridge north of Pristina, killing 47.
May 7 -- A cluster bomb attack damages a marketplace and the grounds of a hospital in Nis, killing at least 15.
May 8 -- Fighter pilots using outdated maps attack the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, killing three journalists and injuring 20 other people.
May 13 -- 87 ethnic Albanian refugees are killed and more than 100 injured in a late-night NATO bombing of a Kosovo village, Korisa.
May 20 -- At least three people are killed when NATO missiles hit a hospital near a military barracks in Belgrade.
May 21 -- NATO bombs a Kosovo jail, killing at least 19 people and injuring scores.
May 21 -- One Kosovo Liberation Army guerrilla is killed and at least 15 injured in an attack on a stronghold of the rebel force.
Sunday -- NATO missiles slam into a bridge crowded with market-goers and cars in central Serbia, killing at least nine people and wounding 28. In southern Kosovo, a NATO missile attack reportedly occurs near a convoy of journalists, killing a local driver and wounding three people.
Source: Associated Press
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Times staff writers Paul Richter in Washington and Maura Reynolds in Moscow contributed to this report.
* DISPATCH FROM KOSOVO: The Serbs are arming the minority of loyal ethnic Albanians to fight the rebel army. A6
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c5eee5f0756b5ed3b4346602f0b9f824 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-nov-01-fi-28546-story.html | Pimco to Sell Majority Stake to Allianz | Pimco to Sell Majority Stake to Allianz
Pimco Advisors Holdings, one of the world’s largest bond managers, agreed Sunday to sell 70% of the company to Europe’s second-largest insurer in a $3.3-billion deal that is likely to spur similar marriages between U.S. and foreign financial giants.
Ending months of speculation, Newport Beach-based Pimco said it signed a definitive agreement to sell majority ownership to Munich, Germany-based Allianz for $38.75 a unit in cash, valuing the entire company at $4.7 billion.
The combined companies, to be based in Munich, would have about $650 billion in assets under management and about 107,000 employees worldwide. The deal--subject to regulatory and shareholder approval--is expected to be completed by March.
The purchase is the latest example of global consolidation in the financial services industry, analysts said.
“The global market offers tremendous potential,” said Philadelphia mutual fund consultant Burton Greenwald, who predicted similar cross-border deals will follow the Pimco-Allianz merger.
Both Pimco and Allianz, which began merger discussions last year, have been actively seeking international partners to boost their sales worldwide.
“This will give us access and experience in 68 countries,” said Ernest Schmider, Pimco’s chief administrative officer.
For Pimco, the Allianz deal fast-tracks the company’s diversification away from the maturing U.S. market and provides a deep-pocketed parent that can help it sell products around the world. During the next five years, Pimco Chief Executive William Cvengros has said he would like to boost the amount of money the company manages on behalf of non-U.S. clients from about 6% of total assets to 20%. Currently Pimco manages about $256 billion.
As growth in the U.S. mutual fund market begins to slow, investment companies increasingly are turning to untapped markets abroad, particularly with the privatization of large pension funds in Europe and elsewhere, according to Greenwald, head of B.J. Greenwald Associates. Teaming with Allianz puts Pimco in a better position to pick up some of that business, he said.
For its part, Allianz gets a well-respected U.S. bond manager that will serve as a foothold for expansion in the U.S. A key attraction is Pimco’s fixed-income unit, Pacific Investment Management Co., which accounts for about two-thirds of the company’s assets, and its industry-leading Total Return Fund, run by Bill Gross.
“For us, a joint future with Pimco represents the decisive step forward in our strategy of establishing asset management as our third core business,” said Henning Schulte-Noelle, chief executive of Allianz. “By combining the expertise and sales forces of Pimco and Allianz, we are on our way to becoming one of the top international providers of global asset management.”
Under the terms of the deal, Pimco’s fixed-income unit will remain based in Newport Beach, under its current management. The unit will take over an additional $100 billion in fixed-income assets from Allianz and operate them under the Pimco name.
Gross will continue running Pimco’s bond investments under a new long-term employment contract, which will include a profit-sharing agreement and a retention compensation plan through 2006. It was unclear whether Cvengros would remain with the company. About five top Pimco managers, including Schmider, will relocate to Munich as part of the deal, Schmider said.
The sale will bring handsome paydays to several top Pimco managers, who together are selling their 22% stake in the company. Based on the $38.75-a-unit sale price, Gross’ holdings would be worth more than $26 million and Cvengros’ stake would be valued at about $8 million.
Newport Beach-based Pacific Life Insurance, which spun off Pimco in 1994, is keeping its 30% stake in the company.
“We are optimistic about Pimco’s future and feel very positive about our continued investment in the company,” said Pacific Life Chairman Thomas C. Sutton.
The $3.3-billion price tag makes it one of the biggest deals in Orange County history.
Analysts agreed that it was unlikely that Allianz would make substantial changes in Pimco’s day-to-day operations or risk alienating its key managers.
“This isn’t like a bank merger, where they come in and close a bunch of branches,” said Mark Constant, an analyst at Lehman Bros. in San Francisco. “There’s no faster way to pour money down the drain than to pay big bucks for a people business and then drive all the people away. I’m sure both companies are interested in retaining the culture and autonomy of Pimco, and allowing it to flourish.”
Nevertheless, one of the biggest challenges to the deal will be resolving differences in culture and style, particularly for Pimco managers, who will be reporting for the first time to a German-based corporate parent.
“Culture is going to be key,” said Lloyd Greif, president of Greif & Co., a Los Angeles-based investment bank. “There are going to be differences in perspectives, and some problems will be inevitable.”
The deal almost hit a snag earlier this month when Jewish groups threatened a boycott of Allianz unless the German insurer released a list of its unpaid policies from the Holocaust era. California Insurance Commissioner Chuck Quackenbush threatened to delay state approval of a purchase of Pimco until the list was released. On Oct. 21, Allianz agreed to have an Israel-based archive review the names in an effort to find Holocaust survivors and their heirs who might be entitled to payments.
The price that Allianz is willing to pay--which is nearly 30% higher than Pimco’s market value before the Allianz rumors emerged--suggests that Wall Street is undervaluing money managers and investment companies, Constant said. He predicted that stock prices for other publicly traded fund companies could rise as a result of the Allianz offer.
Pimco stock closed Friday at $34.69 a unit, up about 2% in New York Stock Exchange trading.
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)
Pimco Purchase
Pimco Advisors, one of the world’s largest money-management firms, agreed Sunday to sell a 70% stake to German insurance giant,Allianz. A look at the two companies:
Pimco
Headquarters: Newport Beach
Operations: Manages more than $250 billion for corporate, institutional and individual investors, primairly through 50 bond and stock mutual funds.
Founded: 1971
Leadership: William D. Cvengros, chief executive; Kenneth M. Poovey, chief operating officer.
Employees: 1,200
Allianz
Headquarters: Munich
Operations: Europe’s second-largest insurer wiht more than $400 billion in assets. The company’s 1998 profit of $2.02 billion was up 29% from a year earlier.
Leadership: Henning Schulte-Noelle, CEO; Diethart Breipohl, chief financial officer.
Employees: 105, 675
Major U.S. holdings: Fireman’s Fund Insurance Co., Novato; Allianz Underwriters Insurance Co., Burbank
Sources: Securities and Exchange Commission; Bloomberg News, Pimco Advisors, Los Angeles Times
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7a5d1a207fea81e4ae52d1b8d99b5242 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-nov-01-me-28639-story.html | Bill Gates’ ‘Diversity’ Subverts Merit | Bill Gates’ ‘Diversity’ Subverts Merit
America’s most celebrated college dropout had a great opportunity to boost higher education, help needy students and strike a blow against racism, but he blew it. If Bill Gates had been able to chat with Teddy Roosevelt before launching his breathtaking $1-billion program of college scholarships, America would be a better place.
Unless significantly amended, Gates’ “minority” scholarships will further inflame racial tensions, delay the achievement of a colorblind society and subvert the cherished virtue of reward by merit.
But let’s start at the beginning.
The Gates Millennium Scholarships for thousands of high school seniors over the next 20 years are intended to produce more scientists, engineers, doctors and educators from among American minorities, who, he claims, are woefully underrepresented in college. His commitment to arbitrarily preferred groups is bound to increase racial resentment. Gates’ vague concept of “diversity” confuses the laudable diversity of cultural talents that strengthens the nation with the self-conscious racial diversity that divides it by breeding arrogance and envy.
In 1915, another time when the United States was pondering problems of the melting pot, Roosevelt said: “There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. . . . The only absolute way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities.” What would Roosevelt say today about African Americans, Latino Americans and other hyphenated Americans?
By restricting his grants to specified minorities, principally blacks, Latinos and American Indians, Gates seems oblivious to the social consequences of his program. Racial preferences, by whatever name, tend to corrupt the putative beneficiaries and antagonize those who are discriminated against.
Gates’ scholarships also violate Martin Luther King Jr.'s admonition to judge persons only on merit, not by the color of their skin. Both Roosevelt and King believed in a colorblind America--a genuine melting pot.
By allowing “diversity” to trump merit, the Gates plan is beset by serious academic flaws. A Gates student must have a 3.3 grade-point average--good in theory, but hardly a reliable guide. Our public high schools vary widely in academic quality, and many of them inflate grades to foster self-esteem.
The Gates applicant also must submit an essay on his aspirations and commitment to service and be nominated by a teacher or community leader. Such essays often reflect the talents of friends or teachers, and letters of reference can be unreliable.
To make matters worse, Gates explicitly excludes the best single measure for predicting success in college--SAT and similar college entrance scores. Ruling out standardized tests, admittedly less than perfect, and relying on soft criteria like dubious essays and nomination letters is bound to yield many mediocre students whose performance will contribute to the further dumbing down in American higher education.
Shelby Steele of the Hoover Institution put it well: “All these ingenious assaults on merit in the name of diversity suggest a loss of faith in a racial equality grounded in merit. . . . The ‘inclusion’ we most need now is . . . intellectual respect, which can be gained through merit alone.”
On the crucial issue of financial need, Gates is on the mark. And there are reliable ways to measure such need. Thousands of academically qualified high school students cannot afford a good college education. They deserve help and encouragement. Why, then, does Gates not provide scholarships to all needy students, regardless of race, creed or color? Why discriminate against white or Asian students? The poor white coal miner’s daughter in West Virginia deserves financial help every bit as much as an equally qualified black from Harlem.
Happily, the serious flaws in the Gates program can be corrected by two simple measures: Award scholarships on academic merit and financial need alone, and rely more fully on standardized tests. So amended, Gates’ generosity would strengthen higher education and, equally important, help mitigate the growing perils of a hyphenated America.
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bc8339d58278267db762f19da824bcbd | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-nov-03-ca-29175-story.html | Classic ‘Two-Lane Blacktop’ Takes the Long Road to Video | Classic ‘Two-Lane Blacktop’ Takes the Long Road to Video
“Two-Lane Blacktop” fans: Start your engines. Monte Hellman’s legendary 1971 road movie is available for the first time on videocassette and DVD.
It has been a long road for the film that before its release was hailed by Esquire magazine as “movie of the year.” A subsequent box office disappointment, “Two-Lane Blacktop” languished in the Universal Studios vaults, its video release stymied in part by entanglements over music rights.
Michigan-based Anchor Bay Entertainment, a producer and distributor of definitive editions of pop culture favorites and cult classics, licensed the long-sought film from Universal. Jay Douglas, Anchor Bay vice president of acquisitions, whose stated company objective is “to put out really cool movies,” enthused in a phone interview: “This has given me the biggest thrill.”
“Two-Lane Blacktop” retails for a suggested list price of $15 on VHS and $30 on DVD. Both present the film in the wide-screen format. The DVD includes audio commentary by Hellman and associate producer Gary Kurtz, and a documentary segment, “Monte Hellman: American Auteur,” directed by George Hickenlooper.
“Two-Lane Blacktop” stars (in their lone leading roles) James Taylor and former Beach Boy Dennis Wilson as, respectively, the Driver and the Mechanic. Warren Oates, in a performance that Leonard Maltin’s “Movie & Video Guide” calls “as good as you’ll ever see and should have had the Oscar,” co-stars as the loquacious G.T.O., who challenges the laconic duo to a race between New Mexico and Washington, D.C.
The late Laurie Bird also stars as the Girl, a drifter who one day climbs into the Driver’s back seat and comes along for the ride (“East? That’s cool, I’ve never been east”), changing bed partners the way the Driver changes lanes. Appearing briefly, but memorably, is Harry Dean (billed as H.D.) Stanton as a hitchhiker who propositions G.T.O.
Like the film’s ’55 Chevy and ’70 Pontiac GTO, “Two-Lane Blacktop” is a fully restored vintage model. It is a relic of the so-called “New Hollywood,” when studios, wanting to duplicate the phenomenal success of “Easy Rider,” flirted briefly with allowing filmmakers total creative freedom.
“It was a little pocket of time,” screenwriter Rudolph Wurlitzer recalled in a phone interview, “a bubble of time when the movies weren’t executive-driven. It didn’t last long. There were four or five years when it was relatively free. Then the gates closed.”
“Two-Lane Blacktop” was one of several films made at Universal in a then-new youth division overseen by Ned Tanen.
“Here was a major studio trying to figure out what it was that made independent films, particularly ‘Easy Rider,’ successful,” Hellman recalled in a phone interview. “They thought, rightfully so, that one of the things was that the filmmakers had freedom.
“Contractually, they said they would not touch a frame of the film as long as it was under two hours. We didn’t have any of the usual problems of a studio coming in and saying to cut out this or add that. We were left completely alone during the shooting and editing. Even producer Michael Laughlin, who was very supportive, did not come on location.”
Character actor Will Corry wrote the original script for “Two-Lane Blacktop” and gets a story credit on the film. It was inspired, he said, by his own cross-country trek in 1968.
This was to be Hellman’s first studio A-picture--albeit with a budget of less than $1 million. His previous credits included “The Shooting” and “Ride in the Whirlwind,” two critically acclaimed westerns that starred Jack Nicholson and that, anticipating “Two-Lane Blacktop,” were better received in Europe than in the United States.
Hellman was introduced to Laughlin by his then-agent, Mike Medavoy, after returning to Hollywood from Italy, where a film project had fallen through. “Two-Lane Blacktop” was one of two films Laughlin presented to him.
“I told him I was very interested in the subject of ‘Two-Lane’ but not particularly in the script he had at that time,” Hellman said. “Fortunately, he agreed to let me bring in another writer.”
Enter Wurlitzer. Hellman had “flipped out” over his book “Nog,” which Wurlitzer described as “a strange ‘60s road novel.” The director recruited him to rewrite the script. It was Wurlitzer’s first screenplay.
Anyone hitching a ride with “Two-Lane Blacktop” for the first time should not expect “Cannonball Run.” This is a more meditative film.
The road, Wurlitzer said, “is a central myth to the American experience, if you really want to be pretentious about it. It’s the kind of innately American restlessness, this sort of insatiable necessity to continually reinvent yourself [as G.T.O., whom Wurlitzer created, does throughout the film]. The road is a great metaphor for that. Also the fact that there is no real road anymore. It’s the horror of the interstate. You go from A to B, but what’s really interesting is to just roll the dice and go left to right on a whim and not have the security of a particular destination. Then it becomes a more profound journey.”
The film has the feel of dream as well as documentary, which Hellman achieved by shooting, for example, interactions between the cast and ordinary people with a hidden camera. He also withheld the script from nonactors Taylor (who was brought in to audition after Hellman saw his picture on a Sunset Boulevard billboard), Wilson and Bird.
“I told them I didn’t want them to know any more than what was happening day by day,” Hellman said. “We had the good fortune to be able to shoot in continuity because we were driving cross-country. I thought if they took one day at a time, as they would in real life, it would give the film an element of reality. Halfway through, James got very uncomfortable with this and finally said he wouldn’t continue unless I gave him the script. So I did, and he never read it.”
“Two-Lane Blacktop” achieved pre-release buzz after Esquire magazine featured the film on its cover and printed the entire screenplay. But, according to Hellman, the arrangement backfired.
“We thought it was good publicity,” he said. “In hindsight, we wouldn’t have done it. I think it raised people’s expectations. They couldn’t accept the movie for what it was.”
The film quickly ran out of gas at the box office, but car buffs, of course, took the film to heart, as did European audiences and critics.
“Two-Lane Blacktop” has long been one of home video’s most wanted. Hellman credits the Scarecrow Video in Seattle with fueling interest in finally getting the film released on video. In 1994, the store collected 2,000 signatures, among them Werner Herzog’s, for a petition. People magazine and Film Comment did stories about the store’s efforts and the film.
For several years, Universal had been looking for a partner to give the film the special handling its cult status warranted.
“This particular title had a lot of interest,” noted Kimberly Johnson, executive director of catalog brand management for Universal Studios Home Video. “We worked on it for several years, trying to figure out what to do with it, to see if it fit anything we were doing. It is so unique that we did not want to lump it in with [other releases] and risk that it would get lost.
“We have a vault full of unreleased product to work on as time and opportunity [arise]. We can only do so much, and that’s why we look for opportunities to partner up with companies that have the resources and the focus for a single title, to launch it as something special and unique.”
The title was a priority for Douglas and Anchor Bay, which already had licensed other niche Universal titles, including “FM” and “Where the Buffalo Roam.”
But efforts to release the film had always stalled, mainly over what the Girl calls the “groovy tunes” on the soundtrack.
Among the biggest stumbling blocks was the Doors’ “Moonlight Drive,” which is prominently featured in one scene. Director William Lustig, who also serves as “technical advisor” for Anchor Bay, recruited Hellman to approach the surviving members of the Doors. “Without the moral support from the artists who made the film,” Douglas said, “they would have turned us down.”
As for Corry, now 69 and living in Jacksonville, Fla., where he is constructing a 43-foot steel scow, he is ambivalent about the video release. “It’s not my story,” he said. “I don’t care one way or the other. I’ve never seen the movie all the way through.
“I wrote a film in 1969 that was very simple and straightforward and entertaining. The kids would have torn the theater apart if filmed as I wrote it. Then they changed the two 17-year-olds--one black and one white--into two rock ‘n’ roll stars. But it was a magical experience. The magic was in the writing of it.”
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328beb9033bfbcd6e317158f028e2d1f | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-nov-06-mn-30725-story.html | Ex-Spouses Go to Court to Split Beanie Babies | Ex-Spouses Go to Court to Split Beanie Babies
A divorced couple who couldn’t agree on how to split up their Beanie Baby collection were ordered by a judge Friday to divide up the babies one by one in a courtroom.
Maple the Bear was the first to go.
“This isn’t about toys. It’s about control,” Family Court Judge Gerald Hardcastle told the couple. “Because you folks can’t solve it, it takes the services of a District Court judge, a bailiff and a court reporter.”
There was snickering among the five or six people in the gallery.
“I don’t agree with the judge’s decision to do this. It’s ridiculous and embarrassing,” Frances Mountain said moments before squatting on the courtroom floor alongside her ex-husband to choose first from a pile of stuffed toys.
Frances and Harold Mountain divorced four months ago. According to the divorce decree, the parties were supposed to divide their Beanie Baby collection, estimated to be worth between $2,500 and $5,000.
But they failed to split up the toys by themselves. After Harold Mountain filed a motion to get his share of the toys, the judge said he had had enough.
“So I told them to bring the Beanie Babies in, spread them out on the floor, and I’ll have them pick one each until they’re all gone.”
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00a5392cef2d99d856442b3130efaf72 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-nov-07-me-31120-story.html | Activist Behind Royce Canyon Remembered | Activist Behind Royce Canyon Remembered
While frustrated Valley residents are nearing the end of their long and seemingly losing battle to block a city dump expansion in Granada Hills, joyful Griffith Park enthusiasts gathered Saturday to celebrate a decade-old victory in their own fierce dump battle.
As word spread Saturday that Mayor Richard Riordan will support the expansion of Sunshine Canyon Landfill in Granada Hills despite vehement local protests, roughly three dozen hikers, naturalists and horseback riders gathered in Griffith Park to rededicate Royce Canyon--a plunging swath of parkland that was once slated to be filled with city garbage.
Winded slightly by a steep hike through parched chaparral and along dusty horse trails, the celebrants also recalled the memory of the woman who saved the canyon that now bears her name: Royce Neuschatz.
It was the late Neuschatz, a city recreation and parks commissioner and regional planner, who friends said led a determined campaign to quash the dump proposal roughly 10 years ago.
Neuschatz, who died of cancer at age 57, was recalled by friends and co-workers as a driving force in L.A.'s environmental movement, as well as a lover of music, good food and diverse friendships.
“Royce did so much to motivate people to support the environment,” said Andy Lipkis, who, along with Neuschatz, started the environmental group TreePeople. “There was a time when people wrote off L.A. as the black hole of the environment. . . . Today, and partly through Royce’s leadership, L.A. has built the largest curbside recycling program in the world.”
As hikers recalled Neuschatz’s memory Saturday, guides pointed out the towering Toyon Canyon Landfill just a short distance from Royce Canyon. Today, the stepped landfill sits capped and covered by a carpeting of sere grasses and a network of white pipes that shunt underground methane to collection tanks.
In the early 1980s, city officials had hoped to expand the Toyon landfill into what is now Royce Canyon, dubbing it Toyon II. The canyon would have been filled with trash within about 18 months.
Neuschatz’s battle against the expansion was different from today’s Granada Hills fight in one significant way, said Mary Nichols, secretary of the California Resources Agency and a longtime friend of Neuschatz: Royce Canyon was in a public park.
“She was opposed to this idea that just because there’s a hole in the ground, it should be filled with trash,” said Nichols, who attended Saturday’s event. “Royce saw that as the desecration of the idea of a public park.”
Indeed, other friends said that up until the late 1980s, public lands were often targeted as potential sites for unpopular uses such as prisons and dumps.
“It sounds absurd today,” said urban planner Arnie Sherwood. “People today have an appreciation now that we don’t have enough parkland.”
At Sunshine Canyon, residents surrounding the dump expansion area have complained that the landfill may cause health problems. City officials, including the mayor, say that although the proposal is unpopular in the area, the expansion will benefit Los Angeles overall. The landfill proposal must still be approved by the City Council, which has favored the plan in preliminary votes.
Most of those who assembled for the Royce Canyon rededication said they were regular visitors to Griffith Park, but were introduced to it by Neuschatz. Although many were familiar with attractions in the southern part of the park--such as Griffith Observatory and the Greek Theatre--and the zoo and museums to the north, few knew much about the network of hiking and riding trails in between.
Mark Pisano, executive director of the Southern California Assn. of Governments, a regional planning agency, said Neuschatz introduced him to the area through horseback riding. He grew to love the area so much that he moved to a house adjacent to the park. Another close friend and aide to the mayor, Tom LaBonge, said he, Neuschatz and the late Charlie Turner--the first honorary mayor of Griffith Park--regularly hiked through the park.
On Saturday, LaBonge led the pack of hikers past thickets of scrub oak, darkened buckwheat and toyon trees. Sweating under the load of his 18-month-old son, Charles, who was strapped to his father’s back, LaBonge said he would never forget those hikes.
“We’d hike from the observatory to Mt. Hollywood and talk the whole time,” LaBonge said. “It was amazing. By the time we got to the summit, we’d have all the world’s problems solved. The trouble is, once we left the summit, it all got away from us.”
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b30600fd28d2fd761a8ff4ffc8d8f42d | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-nov-09-mn-31597-story.html | Clinton Holds Historic Online Chat | Clinton Holds Historic Online Chat
There’s no need to store food if you plan to be in the United States when the new millennium dawns.
The chances of a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians are good--"better than 50-50.”
And future world leaders will have to deal with “miniaturized” weapons of mass destruction that do not rely on missiles as the delivery mechanism.
Expressing his views on a wide range of topics, Bill Clinton on Monday night became the first president to participate in a fully interactive online chat session. About 50,000 Internet users logged on from around the world to see and hear his remarks.
And for more than 90 minutes, the man who openly confesses to being “technologically challenged” chatted up a storm, appearing at once to be fascinated and bemused by a technology that he has fostered through his policies but does not personally embrace.
Indeed, Clinton repeatedly referred to the historic session as simply a “press conference,” and it was easy to see why.
All he had to do was sit on the stage--before cameras, of course--and answer questions that came in over the transom, screened and posed by a moderator.
Someone else typed his answers.
The event was hosted by the Democratic Leadership Council, a centrist organization that Clinton once chaired, and by Excite@Home, a global media and technology company based in Redwood City, Calif.
The president was joined by five Democratic officials from their home bases around the country, including Maryland Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend and San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales, although a glitch prevented Gonzales from being seen or heard until almost an hour into the session.
The other Democrats who participated in the session were New Hampshire Gov. Jeanne Shaheen, Wisconsin state Sen. Antonio Riley and Bethlehem, Pa., Mayor Don Cunningham.
Clinton likened the virtual town hall meeting to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s fireside chats and John F. Kennedy’s live-TV news conferences, praising the use of “the most modern technology for . . . old-fashioned communication between the American people and their president.”
Clinton also took note of the astounding speed with which the Internet has developed, pointing out that when he took office, only 1.3 million computers were connected to the Internet--compared to more than 56 million now.
He also said that the number of Web sites has reached 3.6 million, from only 130 in 1993.
The wide-ranging questions afforded Clinton the opportunity to tout his agenda, from gun control and Medicare prescription drug coverage to the hiring of 100,000 new teachers to reduce class sizes and the extending of health insurance coverage.
To one questioner, the president stated that Congress should enact “modest tax relief” even though he has vetoed a nearly $800-billion tax cut.
“And I will be flexible in working with Congress on what the contents should be,” he vowed.
When “Cynthia in Arizona” asked whether Clinton planned to have a food stash on hand because of problems that may rise from the Y2K computer bug, the president replied: “The answer is no,” adding that only “some of our small businesses” appear not to be prepared for the change.
Questions came from Canada and England as well as from throughout the United States.
One questioner asked Clinton about his post-White House plans, another about what Clinton believes will be his legacy. There was no mention of Clinton’s impeachment.
The president said that he intends to work on his library and create a public policy center, both in Little Rock, Ark.
Of his legacy, Clinton said he would like to be remembered as having presided over an era of “restoration of prosperity and hope.”
The session seemed to give Clinton energy. He stayed on 20 minutes longer than planned.
After nearly seven years in office, he said as the session wrapped up: “I understand how a president can get out of touch. . . . This is very, very helpful.”
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ca4d9eba104a0d12d088539727547de7 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-nov-11-me-32277-story.html | Bookkeeper in Estate Fraud Case Enters Guilty Plea | Bookkeeper in Estate Fraud Case Enters Guilty Plea
A bookkeeper pleaded guilty and a lawyer pleaded not guilty Wednesday to charges they participated in the embezzlement of more than $750,000 from the estates of 23 people who were too old or infirm to handle their own financial affairs.
The prime suspect in the massive fraud case--a court-appointed conservator--has been arrested at her home in Tennessee and is not fighting extradition to Riverside, authorities said Wednesday.
An employee of the conservator’s company, which is based in Riverside, was charged with being an accessory to the embezzlements and will be arraigned Friday.
The four were charged this week following a seven-month-long investigation by the Riverside County district attorney’s office into allegations that conservator Bonnie J. Cambalik took hundreds of thousands of dollars from mentally and physically frail clients whose estates she managed.
“This case exposes greed at its worst,” said Riverside County Dist. Atty. Grover Trask. “These suspects preyed upon defenseless elders in our community. They betrayed a sacred trust, demonstrating contempt for the system designed to protect some of our most powerless citizens.”
Cambalik was charged with embezzlement by a caretaker, conspiracy to commit grand theft and perjury. She faces up to 16 years in prison if convicted.
Her Riverside attorney, Michael J. Molloy, who signed court documents attesting to the accuracy of Cambalik’s estate management, pleaded not guilty Wednesday to charges of grand theft, conspiracy to commit grand theft and subornation of perjury. If convicted, he faces a maximum prison term of 15 years.
Both Cambalik and Molloy were being held on $700,000 bail.
On Wednesday, Diana Marie Mikol, Cambalik’s bookkeeper, pleaded guilty to one count of grand theft and promised to cooperate with investigators and repay the estimated $30,000 she said she received from Cambalik, in order to avoid a maximum five-year prison sentence. Her mother, Ramona Lynn Saenz, will be arraigned Friday on charges of being an accessory to embezzlement, a felony. Both Mikol and Saenz remained free on their own recognizance.
Prosecutors allege that Cambalik and Molloy paid themselves excessive and unauthorized conservator and attorney fees from the estates assigned to Cambalik’s company, West Coast Conservatorships. They also were accused of selling clients’ assets without approval, and sharing the profits among themselves and the two office workers.
One example, according to prosecutors, was the sale of $265,000 in stock owned by the estate of a client who died. After the proceeds of the sale reached the bank account of Cambalik’s company, she used some of the proceeds to pay “cash bonuses for all the suspects,” according to prosecutors.
Prosecutors also allege that Cambalik maintained a “slush fund” in which she illegally shifted funds among conservatees to “pay back” other clients for past embezzlements before those thefts could be discovered.
Since 1986, Cambalik was assigned by Riverside Probate Judge William Sullivan to manage about 300 estates. Due to the statute of limitations and other legal constraints, investigators only reviewed cases she handled since November 1995, and charged illegal activities involving 23 estates, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Edward Kotkin, the prosecutor assigned to the case. He would not say how many estates were reviewed.
Kotkin refused to speculate on the total number of possible victims. “We won’t say when we believe the criminal activity began, but it was more than what we alleged,” he said. “She was in business since 1986. You do the math.”
Charges were brought in the 23 cases because they are “eminently provable” and can be clearly presented to a jury, he said.
The victims were people who had been found by the judge to no longer be able to handle their own affairs, typically because they were mentally or physically incompetent, but who had sufficient assets to pay for a private, court-appointed conservator--Cambalik. (Indigent clients are handled by the county’s public guardian.)
The county’s public defender’s office is assigned as a watchdog on behalf of many of the conservatees, to ensure that their estates are properly managed by private conservators. However, the alleged embezzlements by Cambalik were not detected by the defender’s office and probate investigators.
When the allegations surfaced against Cambalik, the county Board of Supervisors ordered Public Defender Margaret Spencer to place on leave the staff members who were assigned to monitor Cambalik’s cases. When Spencer refused, she was fired.
Her replacement, Gary Windom, said Wednesday that his office had been unable to discover the alleged embezzlements “because sophisticated fraud is undetectable.”
To better prevent further frauds, Windom said he hopes to hire a supervisor whose sole job would be to conduct spot checks of various conservatorships.
The current charges, however, were triggered when irregularities in estates handled by Cambalik were discovered in public files. Others who have reviewed them said some of the thefts should have been easily detected with simple accounting.
The initial accusations of wrongdoing by Cambalik were made by another private conservator in Riverside, Terence Loughran, who said he questioned Cambalik’s paperwork. He said his complaints fell on deaf ears locally--including a grand jury investigation that did not lead to any indictments, and his concerns ultimately were forwarded to Barbara Jagiello, a San Francisco probate attorney.
Jagiello conducted her own investigation and earlier this year forwarded her findings to Riverside County officials, sparking the criminal probe.
“I’m elated,” Jagiello said Wednesday of the arrests. “This has been a very long road.”
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dec5f711588d22e5174ce8afa6f70de5 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-nov-12-mn-32706-story.html | Pokemon Fever Turns Into a Headache at Burger King | Pokemon Fever Turns Into a Headache at Burger King
Burger King Corp. may have a whopper of a public relations problem on its hands over its $22-million Pokemon promotion, one of the largest in the history of the fast-food industry.
Dozens of Southland Burger Kings--and scores across the country--ran out of Pokemon toys tied to the Warner Bros. hit movie on Thursday, causing angry parents and crying children to storm out of its restaurants.
“I think they should have planned ahead,” said an annoyed Melanie Nelson, a 26-year-old Long Beach homemaker, who brought her son, Dylan, to a Costa Mesa Burger King after seeing the movie on his ninth birthday Thursday.
Miami-based Burger King, the nation’s second-largest burger chain with 8,000 locations, launched the two-month campaign Monday, hoping to make major inroads against industry leader McDonald’s Corp.
“Pokemon: The First Movie,” opened in theaters Wednesday and raked in $10.6 million at 2,900 U.S. screens. It was the highest-grossing Wednesday premiere of any film to open in November in the history of Hollywood, according to Warner Bros. Many parents have been bringing their children to Burger King immediately after seeing the movie.
Pokemon passed the billion-dollar mark as a global entertainment brand in the last year. The movie and the cartoon show, which appears 11 times a week on the WB network, centers on the adventures of Ash Ketchum and two fellow Pokemon trainers, Misty and Brock. The series and movie are based on a popular Nintendo game that involves capturing and training 150 unique Pokemon characters. The term “Pokemon” is a fusion of the words “pocket” and “monster.”
The Pokemon craze became a full-fledged phenomenon this spring, primarily with young boys between the ages of 6 and 12, thanks to a series of collectible trading cards licensed by Nintendo.
The chain’s promotion involves giving away one of 57 different toys--eight per week--during the campaign. Children receive a toy inside a “Pokeball” when they order a Kids Meal or Big Kids Meal, which range from $1.99 to $3.19. Included is one of 151 trading cards made especially for the Burger King campaign.
At most Southland Burger Kings, the first week’s supply was exhausted in half that time.
“In the short run, this clearly hurts Burger King,” said Hal Seiling, a Carlsbad restaurant consultant, noting that it is not uncommon for there to be shortages when a fast-food promotion hits fever pitch. “The chains can’t afford to have an unlimited number [of toys] on hand so they just do the best they can and kind of regroup after a disaster.”
Several exasperated Burger King managers interviewed Thursday said they weren’t sure when more toys would arrive. “There is not a Burger King in town with any left,” said a manager in Irvine.
Burger King spokeswoman Kim Miller said deliveries of the Pokemon toys are scheduled “on a 24-hour basis” and that the chain “is examining every option” to try to eliminate the shortages, which she insisted are only in certain spots and not widespread.
“We are working around the clock to move toys. We have toys making their way by planes, trains and automobiles as well as ships,” Miller said. “It’s almost like monitoring Santa’s progress. We are getting hourly reports where they are.”
Some of the shortages can be attributed to bulk buying of meals by Pokemon collectors, Miller said. One customer was denied service at a Burger King in Chicago when he tried to purchase 500 meals.
“We have strongly recommended to restaurants that they limit the number of meals to 10 or less so that we can be fair to all of our customers,” Miller said. “We have seen some hoarding, particularly by collectors and this promotion is really for the kids.”
Burger King’s Pokemon toys merchandise began appearing on Internet auction sites on Sunday, a day before they hit the restaurants, as people anticipating a crush of demand tried to turn the plastic toys into a quick profit. A survey of major online auction sites late Thursday found dozens of Pokemon figures for sale, many of them claiming to be unopened and in mint condition. But the vast majority had not attracted bids. The most popular figure was Pikachu, which had attracted a $25 bid.
Nelson is among those who have young children afflicted with Pokemon fever. She was so disappointed Thursday that she left the Costa Mesa restaurant without ordering any food, rushing to another Burger King down the street where she heard toys were still available.
“They have to know that everyone wants Pokemon,” she said as she got into her car. “They should have totally planned.”
Elizabeth Lewis, 35, was among the last to get toys at the same Burger King earlier in the day but nevertheless left the restaurant looking frazzled.
“It was crazy in there,” the Costa Mesa resident said. “It’s the craziest I’ve ever seen. They are even out of straws and the wastepaper baskets are overflowing. But, we got our toys.”
On Wednesday, a Burger King on Fair Oaks Avenue in Pasadena ran out of Pokemon toys just before the dinner hour when traffic in the drive-through lane was backed up about a block. Most of the cars were vans and sport-utility vehicles packed with kids.
The disappointment was palpable when a handwritten sign was posted on the door. It read, “Sorry, we’re temporarily out of Pokemon.”
Toy shortages have hit the fast-food industry before. In June, Burger King was forced to pull all advertising for its popular Teletubbies promotion because of shortages.
McDonald’s has experienced shortages with its Teenie Beanie Babies toys, both in 1997 and this year. The Illinois-based burger giant will launch a $30-million promotion later this month tied to the Disney film “Toy Story 2.”
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Times staff writer Jonathan Gaw contributed to this report.
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ARRESTED OVER POKEMON
Two eight-graders in Rancho Palos Verdes admittied to stealing classmates cards.. B1.
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629f09504fdc0aada2f059c9d8d6169a | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-nov-14-me-33498-story.html | Actress Sues to Keep Mother Away From Assets | Actress Sues to Keep Mother Away From Assets
If you’ve seen “Contact,” “Stepmom” or “For Love of the Game” at the movies, if you’ve watched “Chicago Hope,” “Homicide” or “Touched by an Angel” on television, then you’ve seen Jena Malone at work.
This 14-year-old is blessed with talent to burn. She’s burdened, a lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court charges, with a mother who lived off her earnings and mismanaged her money.
Jena, who has lived on her own off and on, is seeking emancipation from her mother, 36-year-old Debbie Malone; the case is pending in Juvenile Court. The precocious 14-year-old also recently filed a related suit in Superior Court, accusing mom of squandering more than $1 million.
Jena won a partial victory in her quest to keep her mother away from her money. Superior Court Judge David Yaffe enjoined Debbie Malone from making good on her threat to move Jena, against her will, to a tiny apartment in Las Vegas--a sure career killer, Jena’s attorneys argue. The banks that hold Jena’s accounts have frozen them for now.
Court papers by attorney Marty Singer say that Malone has lived off her daughter’s earnings for years. Because of Malone’s mismanagement, the suit alleges, Jena owes $20,000 in back taxes and her college fund has been drained.
Instead, court documents allege, Malone has spent the money on business schemes, and for down payments on homes for her father and three brothers.
Paul Peterson, who heads an advocacy group for child performers called A Minor Consideration and who has been consulted on the case, says Jena should have at least $360,000 in a blocked trust account; instead there is only about $80,000.
The money is supposed to be set aside for Jena under a law named after child actor Jackie Coogan, whose high-living mother left him broke. The law calls for up to 20% of a child performer’s earnings to be put in trust until the performer reaches age 18.
The parties return to court Nov. 24. Debbie Malone did not return our phone call.
EEK, A MOUSE: A man who bought a Hidden Hills home from Melissa Gilbert and Bruce Boxleitner claims the house was damaged and infested with rats and flies when he took possession.
Edward Czuker contends that the actor couple breached the sales contract by leaving the property “infested with both live and dead rats, mold, fungus, dry rot, live and dead flies everywhere.”
Then, according to the Los Angeles Superior Court suit, there was the inoperable electrical system, with its wires left dangerously exposed. Light fixtures, as well as the built-in stereo and intercom, were ripped out. The pond and landscaping service was canceled eight weeks before escrow closed. Dirt was everywhere, which “made the house uninhabitable.”
Czuker seeks $210,000 in damages--the amount he says he needs to spend before he can move into the house. He also seeks unspecified punitive damages.
John Loeb, an attorney for Gilbert and Boxleitner, said the couple were blown away by the suit and completely surprised. They’d had the house cleaned when they moved out, he said. Gilbert’s lawyer, Marcia J. Harris, said she has visited the Hidden Hills home several times and found it “absolutely gorgeous, definitely not a rat house. I would go so far to say it was spotless.”
ONLY A LAWSUIT: Dr. Robert Huizenga claims Warner Bros. has stiffed him for at least $1 million and credit for the movie version of his 1994 book “You’re OK, It’s Only a Bruise.”
The book detailed his days as team physician for the Los Angeles Raiders. In his Los Angeles Superior Court breach of contract suit, Huizenga claims the Oliver Stone film “Any Given Sunday,” due to be released next month, is based on his book. Despite a contract with the studio, Huizenga says, he hasn’t been paid or given the proper credits.
A Warner Bros. spokeswoman said the doctor “was fully compensated for his services.” She declined further comment.
Huizenga, by the way, was the doctor the defense summoned to examine O.J. Simpson shortly after the murders of former wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend, Ronald Lyle Goldman.
NO DIRTY LINEN: Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman don’t have to worry about any dirty linen being aired by their former wardrobe assistant.
Superior Court Judge Marilyn Hoffman dismissed a wrongful termination suit filed against the Hollywood ubercouple in February by Judita Gomez, the woman who fluffed, folded, picked out and packed their clothes for five years.
Gomez claimed she was fired without good reason and has been unable to find a similarly high-class job.
Attorneys for Mr. and Mrs. Top Gun told the judge that Gomez had been uncooperative and not entirely credible during pretrial depositions.
UNHAPPY UNHOOKER: The widow of the late and legendary porn star John Holmes is suing her husband’s former business partner for slander in Los Angeles Superior Court.
Laurie Holmes, who appeared in adult films during the 1980s, claims that William Amerson called her a “hooker” in an on-camera interview for an R-rated documentary called “WADD: The Life and Times of John C. Holmes.”
She seeks unspecified damages from Amerson and VCA Labs Inc., the film’s distributor. She says she was never a prostitute. John Holmes died of AIDS in 1988.
A VCA spokesman couldn’t be reached for comment.
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bd127d97bde8c941f5ae64259cc42a14 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-nov-16-mn-34060-story.html | Time, Space Obsolete in New View of Universe | Time, Space Obsolete in New View of Universe
Ever since early astronomers yanked Earth from center stage in the solar system some 500 years ago, scientists have been pulling the rug out from under people’s basic beliefs.
“The history of physics,” says Harvard physicist Andrew Strominger, “is the history of giving up cherished ideas.”
No idea has been harder to give up, however--for physicists and laypeople alike--than everyday notions of space and time, the fundamental “where” and “when” of the universe and everything in it.
Einstein’s unsettling insights more than 80 years ago showed that static space and fixed time were flimsy facades, thinly veiling a cosmos where seconds and meters ooze like mud and the rubbery fabric of space-time warps into an unseen fourth dimension. About the same time, the new “quantum mechanical” understanding of the atom revealed that space and time are inherently jittery and uncertain.
Now, some physicists are taking this revolutionary line of thinking one step further: If their theories are right, in the words of Edward Witten of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, space and time may be “doomed.”
Concurs physicist Nathan Seiberg, also of the institute: “I am almost certain that space and time are illusions. These are primitive notions that will be replaced by something more sophisticated.”
That conclusion may not affect anyone’s morning commute. But it is rocking the foundations of physics--as well as causing metaphysical reverberations that inevitably follow major changes in our fundamental understanding of how the universe works.
The impetus behind this tumult is an idea that has become increasingly dominant in modern physics: string theory. According to string theory, the most basic ingredients in the universe are no longer point-like particles, the familiar electrons and quarks. Instead, they are unimaginably small vibrating strings of some unknown fundamental stuff.
String theory suggests that different configurations of strings produce different harmonic chords--just as a piano produces a sound different from that of a flute. The vibrating string gives rise to the particles, and the way the string vibrates determines each particle’s properties. This all takes place in a convoluted landscape of 11-dimensional space.
It is a concept so strange that even theoretical physicists struggle to understand it. String theory offers a universe bizarre beyond imagining: Under powerful enough magnification, every known particle in the universe would resemble a complex origami folded out of sheets or strings of the three familiar spatial dimensions, plus one dimension of time, plus seven extra dimensions of space.
While string theory is far from proven, or even well formulated, its consequences would be enormous. Among other things, it would:
* Reshape fundamental notions of space and time, energy and matter, expanding the number of dimensions to 11.
* Give the first comprehensive list of all the ingredients that make up the universe.
* Reveal that every tick of a clock, every barking dog, every dying star, can be described by one master mathematical equation.
Being Involved in a ‘Scientific Revolution’
Which practical fruits will flow from the new view of the universe remain unknown. But in the past, fundamental revolutions in physics have--against everyone’s wildest expectations--flowered into everything from cell phones to brain scans.
“I’ve been in physics for 35 years, and this is the first time I’ve felt I’m involved in a scientific revolution,” said Stanford physicist Leonard Susskind. “In the last five or six years, I really have the feeling we’re doing something as crazy, as interesting, as new as the revolution that Einstein wrought.”
Perhaps most revolutionary of all, it appears that space and time aren’t essential ingredients of a universe ruled by strings.
To grasp the extent of the current upheaval in physics, consider what has happened to our basic understanding of space and time over the past hundred years.
Until the early 20th century, scientists, like laypeople, assumed that space and time were fixed--like huge, metaphysical clocks and rulers in the firmament. Objects that moved in this unchanging background could be pinned down to definite positions.
“Everything was where it was when it was supposed to be, and that was all there was to it,” said Strominger. “Space-time was out there. You could count on it.”
Then, Einstein revealed that space and time were woven into a single fabric that deforms like so much Silly Putty; indeed, it is the warping of the fabric of space-time by massive objects that produces the force of gravity. We perceive gravity as a “force” only because we can’t directly perceive the fourth dimension.
Because gravity affects everything, everything gets warped by its pervasive influence--including the clocks and rulers we use to measure time and space.
Even more unsettling, Einstein’s now well-proven theories showed that the fabric of space-time, with its three dimensions of space and one of time, is not a passive backdrop for the events and objects in the universe. Space-time also creates objects and events.
Imagine the universe as a performance on a stage. The stage of space-time does not act like a static floor. It also pulls and pushes the actors around.
Quantum mechanics introduced even more uncertainty. In the subatomic realm, the entire concept of fixed particles in time and space fuzzes out into an ever-shifting haze of probabilities. Trying to pin down a subatomic particle’s location or motion is like trying to put your finger on a snowflake; the very act of measurement destroys the thing being measured.
“That means . . . space-time is an uncertain concept, so you’ve lost your firm footing,” said Strominger. “And that is a deep conceptual issue we have not yet come to grips with.”
Now string theory appears to be propelling this evolution one drastic, perhaps inevitable, step further.
Certain approaches to string theory dispense with the notion of space-time completely. Yet, they seem to produce the same set of results as string theories with normal space and time.
To some theorists, this strongly suggests that space and time are superfluous. Space and time as fundamental concepts may be about to disappear altogether--literally pulling the floor out from under physics.
“The notion of space-time is something we’ve cherished for thousands of years, and it’s clearly something we’re going to have to give up,” said Strominger.
Even before string theory enjoyed its recent successes, physicists knew they would have to grapple again with the inadequacy of our understanding of space and time. The reason is a glaring mismatch between gravity, which rules large-scale events in the cosmos, and quantum mechanics, which rules small-scale happenings.
Both gravity and quantum theory are well understood and have survived decades of experimental tests. Quantum mechanics gave rise to lasers and computers; Einstein’s theory of gravity predicted everything from black holes to the bending of light by stars, insights since proved by observations.
The problem is, the two theories are mutually exclusive. The space and time of quantum theory don’t mesh with the space and time of Einstein’s theory of gravity, or General Relativity. In the language of gravity, the quantum mechanical aspects of the universe turn into gobbledygook. And vice versa.
“We can describe the world that we see and experience completely,” said UC Santa Barbara physicist Sean Carroll, “but the explanations are internally inconsistent.”
Some Things Don’t Affect Everyday Life
Until recently, physicists found it easy to sweep this unpleasantness under the rug--in part because they didn’t know how to deal with it, in part because it doesn’t make a difference in our everyday lives.
The inherently uncertain behavior of subatomic particles affects only things as small as atoms, not everyday objects like chairs; the warping of space and time shapes the orbits of planets, but is too diluted to make itself felt on the scale of our own backyards.
Where the large-scale fabric of space-time gets tangled in the inner lives of atoms, however, chaos erupts; space and time fail to make sense. And increasingly, physicists find themselves face to face with situations where quantum mechanics and the extreme warping of space-time collide.
For example, physicists won’t be able to understand either the innards of black holes or the origins of the universe until they come to grips with how gravity behaves at extremely small scales. Indeed, the ultimate laboratory for studying the collision of these two opposing realms is the infinitely compressed dollop of space-time that gave rise to the Big Bang.
That cataclysmic speck, physicists believe, contained everything now in our universe, so it would have packed a huge gravitational wallop. At the same time, it would have been small enough to behave according to quantum mechanical laws.
Because physicists can’t study the Big Bang directly, they wind back the clock with equations and thought experiments--imagining what might happen, for example, if time really reversed.
The results are disturbing: As the universe gets smaller and smaller, the warping of space-time gets stronger and quantum uncertainties get progressively larger. Finally, the uncertainty becomes larger than any time interval that could possibly be measured. Measurement becomes meaningless.
Time at the first moment dissolves into nonsense.
“If you ask questions about what happened at very early times,” said Harvard physicist Sidney Coleman, “and you compute the answer, the [real] answer is: Time doesn’t mean anything.”
Or consider what happens inside a black hole--a region where gravity is so strong that space-time curls in on itself, in effect, shutting out the rest of the universe. Black holes are swirling pits of pure space-time. And according to Einstein’s theory, their enormous gravity causes them to collapse to an infinite point of zero size--what physicists call singularity. Is there such a nonsensical thing as infinite density packed into zero size?
“I remember puzzling about that when I was a kid,” said Gary Horowitz of the Institute for Theoretical Physics at UC Santa Barbara. “I thought when I went to college I would find out the answer . . . I’m still waiting.”
In the pinched-off centers of black holes, space-time appears to simply stop. “The singularity acts like an edge,” said Horowitz. “You run into it, and it’s the end. There’s no time after that; there’s no space after that. But we don’t think physics should end [there]. That’s why we’re trying to” find new laws of physics, which will describe what happens beyond that edge.
Black holes, said Princeton physicist John Archibald Wheeler, "[teach] us that space can be crumpled like a piece of paper into an infinitesimal dot, that time can be extinguished like a blown-out flame, and that the laws of physics that we regard as ‘sacred,’ as immutable, are anything but.”
Space, Time May Be Doomed as Concepts
String theory has emerged as the only viable candidate to reconcile the differences between gravity and quantum mechanics. It does so by eliminating the notion of infinitely small particles. The loop of string is the smallest allowable size.
“You never get to the point where the disasters happen,” said Seiberg of the Institute for Advanced Study. “String theory prevents it.”
But rather than rescuing space and time, string theory only seems to make their doom as fundamental concepts more imminent.
When they are incorporated into string theory, “space and time get confused,” said Seiberg. “It’s telling us that the traditional understanding of space and time will evaporate and there will be a more interesting and subtle result.”
Some string theorists believe that space and time somehow emerged in the early universe out of the disorganized, 11-dimensional strings. The strings are “shards” of space and time, said physicist Brian Greene of Columbia University.
Imagine grains of sand on the surface of a drum. If you tap the surface over and over at the same place, the sand falls into patterns--like iron filings around a magnet.
Did space and time emerge in the same way, as resonant patterns of vibrating strings?
Trying to make sense of such an idea is a struggle even for theorists.
“String theory has been giving us a lot of clues,” said Strominger, “but we haven’t been able to put them together into a unified picture.”
Even philosophically, the challenge of replacing space and time is daunting. What does it mean to inhabit a spaceless, timeless universe? Clocks and rulers not only measure hours and inches; they tell us where we’ve been and where we’re going.
“When we talk about space and time, we think there is something there, and we live in it,” said David Gross, director of the Institute for Theoretical Physics. The idea that space and time might be illusions, he said, “is very disturbing. Where are we? When are we?”
The almost unfathomable scenario of a universe without space and time in turn calls into question the very connection between cause and effect. If time can break down, how can one event be placed clearly “before” or “after” another?
Hypothetically, if there is no clear difference between now and the instant after, how can we say whether the gunshot caused death--or death caused the gunshot?
“We normally think of causality as a basic property,” said Horowitz. “Something effects something else. But when you’re getting rid of space and time . . . are we sure that causality is going to be preserved?”
New views of time could lead to even more bizarre consequences--for instance, more than two dimensions of time, a theory being worked on by USC physicist Itzhak Bars, among others.
Whatever the outcome of these efforts, it’s clear, said Greene, that “space is undergoing a drastic rearrangement of its basic pieces; we will not understand string theory until we make a major breakthrough in notions of space and time.”
If Greene and his colleagues are right, expanding the universe into 11 dimensions and looping it into strings are only the beginning. On the horizon looms a new kind of physics, where space and time melt down completely.
“The real change that’s around the corner [is] in the way we think about space and time,” said Gross. “We haven’t come to grips with what Einstein taught us. But that’s coming. And that will make the world around us seem much stranger than any of us can imagine.”
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Next: Caltech’s savior of string theory
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The Fabric of Space-Time
As the eye sees them, space and time are woven into a smooth “fabric” of four-dimensional space-time. At close magnification, however, the inherent uncertainty of the subatomic realm (quantum mechanics) disrupts this smooth landscape, creating submicroscopic chaos.
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Source: The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)
String Theory
According to string theory, unimaginably small vibrating strings form the building blocks of everything in the cosmos. This differs from prevailing theories of subatomic physics, in which particles meet and exchange energy at specific points in space and time. Under string theory, strings spread out these interactions over space and time. This “spreading out” eliminates the mathematical problems that crop up when infinitely small points collide.
Researched by NONA YATES/Los Angeles Times
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)
Adding Dimensions
In string theory, each point in everyday space-time also contains an extra seven dimensions curled up so small that we can never perceive them. The exact forms of these curled-up dimensions determine all the particles and forces in the universe. One possibility for the geometry of the curled-up dimensions is shown here; because only two dimensions can be shown on a flat piece of paper, this only hints at its complexity.
If string theory is right, each movement of your finger travels not only through the familiar three dimensions of space and one of time, but also through seven curled-up dimensions.
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Source: The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene; Researched by NONA YATES / Los Angeles Times
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9c250059cfebfe6d58577459d4e5ff0d | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-nov-18-ca-34753-story.html | Sidekick Bat Spreads His Wings in ‘Bartok’ | Sidekick Bat Spreads His Wings in ‘Bartok’
Audiences went batty over the impish Bartok in Fox’s 1997 animated musical “Anastasia.”
In fact, the white, wisecracking, diminutive bat was such a favorite of children and adults that he is now starring in his own movie, “Bartok the Magnificent,” which made its video and DVD debut on Tuesday (Fox, $20 for video; $30 for DVD).
“Once we thought about a lot of ideas, our favorite idea was the one you see,” says Chris Meledandri, president of 20th Century Fox Animation. “We watched so many audiences watch the movie, it was clear that there was this great affinity for Bartok.”
Hank Azaria reprises his role as the voice of Bartok, who is sent on a quest to save the young Prince Ivan, whose kidnapping has left the Russian throne in trouble. Kelsey Grammer is the voice of his sidekick, Zozi the Bear; Andrea Martin is Baba Yaga, the witch of Russian lore who ends up actually being a sweetie; Catherine O’Hara is the voice of Ludmilla, Prince Ivan’s conniving regent; and Jennifer Tilly supplies the giggles as the optimistic pink creature, Piloff.
Don Bluth and Gary Goldman, the directors and producers of “Anastasia,” repeat those duties with this movie; composers Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty, who penned the Oscar-nominated score of “Anastasia,” wrote five new ditties for “Bartok.” Flaherty also composed the underscore.
“The movie came together very quickly,” Meledandri says. “Hank wanted to be involved, more than just the voice. He wanted to be involved in coming up with the story and really shaping the film creatively. I have never seen a movie grow organically more quickly. The movie sort of pulled us along behind it. Then we got the enthusiastic response from Don Bluth and Gary Goldman that they wanted to make the movie themselves, and then Lynn and Stephen wanted to be a part of it in such a critical way.”
Unlike most made-for-video animated films, “Bartok” is surprisingly rich visually. “We believe that the movie we have made is absolutely of theatrical quality,” Meledandri says.
“Yet we thought the best way to present the film to an audience was through video. There is certainly a history of audiences responding to an original video release that is a theatrical movie. But we certainly thought about releasing it theatrically because we think it is such a strong film.
“The budget was lower than the theatrical budget for ‘Anastasia,’ ” he says. “But Don and Gary really used a lot of their filmmaking skill to make sure that there was a production value in this film that audiences would feel was absolutely up to the standard they had set on ‘Anastasia.’ ”
“Anastasia” was a big hit on video, selling 8 million units.
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2bdb3f375083c93fb201a6725bb42eb3 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-nov-19-mn-35321-story.html | 11/19/99: Your Life Will Never Be This Odd Again | 11/19/99: Your Life Will Never Be This Odd Again
Today, 11/19/1999, is the last day of your life in which all the digits of the date will be odd. Such a conjunction of unevenness will not occur again until 1/1/3111.
The next time all the digits of the date will be even will occur in February: 2/2/2000, to be precise. An all-even date hasn’t occurred since 8/8/888. There will be many more all-even days during the next millennium, however.
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a3b95ad60212ae2b36b3587316bdb1b5 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-nov-20-mn-36275-story.html | Unsolved Slayings Have Small N.M. Town Living in Fear | Unsolved Slayings Have Small N.M. Town Living in Fear
There’s not much to the town. You come upon it in the vast, yellow-brown emptiness of southern New Mexico’s high desert grassland. It’s mainly just a strip of old storefronts on Highway 60, with some dusty side streets.
In a 40-mile radius of Quemado you might find 500 people, about half of them ranchers living like pioneers on the plains and in the foothills, miles from any neighbor. The rest live in town, in trailer homes and faded stucco bungalows amid the tumbleweeds and pinon trees.
The sheriff, Cliff Snyder, said it used to be a peaceful place in its lonesome way, before all the killings. Now there’s fear in the air, like a foul wind.
Who murdered Gary and Judy Wilson? It’s a mystery. They disappeared in November 1995 and turned up eight months later, so many bones in the woods. Who shoved Gilbert Stark into a 20-foot well and closed the cover in ’96? Who shot the elderly Clark couple and their daughter in ’97? Who put a bullet in the heart of James Carroll, 59, as he stood in his corral just north of town one autumn day last year? The sheriff doesn’t know.
He and the state police said they are convinced the cases aren’t related. They were random eruptions of murder where murder used to be rare, Snyder said. He has no clear explanation for it. All of the victims lived in the countryside around Quemado, about 125 miles southwest of Albuquerque. Before the Wilsons were slain, no one had died by another’s hand in this part of sprawling Catron County in nearly a decade.
And no one wants to be next. In a swath of America where gun control means hitting what you’re aiming at, a lot of folks are packing iron. They’re propping shotguns and rifles beside their beds; they’re driving with pistols on the front seats of their pickups. The sheriff said he doesn’t mind. This is the rural West, he pointed out, and guns are a heritage.
“We’re raised with them,” said Snyder, 42. He shrugged. “If I pull over a vehicle, I figure they’re armed, if they live in this county.”
At El Sarape Cafe on Quemado’s main street, Irene Jaramillo, 43, keeps a .22-caliber semiautomatic on a shelf near the griddle. One morning last week, Paul Strand, 67, who owns a horse ranch south of town, was sipping coffee in the cafe with his wife and holding forth on the subject of their firearms.
“I sleep with a Colt .45 under my pillow,” he said. “I have a loaded assault rifle beside the bed, a Russian-type, ready to roll. And a sawed-off shotgun next to that, loaded, legal, but just barely, in terms of the barrel length.”
Across the street, Carl Geng, who is in his 60s, runs the Allison Motel with his wife. They also own a ranch outside of town. Geng said he thinks he knows the culprit in one of the homicide cases. “I’ve got a .38,” he said, gesturing to his truck in the parking lot. “He sets one foot on my ranch, I’ll blow his head off.”
The sheriff said he and the state police think most or all of the victims were murdered by acquaintances with whom they had personal disputes. As for suspects, investigators have only “theories,” he said.
It’s a crime in New Mexico to carry a concealed loaded weapon in a public place but legal for anyone 21 or older to carry one openly, no permit necessary. James Clark, a Vietnam veteran, started packing two handguns after his parents, William Clark, 84, and Pearl Clark, 74, were slain in 1997 along with his sister, Sharron Hutson, 44. Folks in Quemado are used to seeing him in town with a .45-caliber Colt Peacemaker on his right hip and a .40-caliber semiautomatic in a shoulder holster.
“Which is fine,” said Irene Jaramillo’s husband, Jimmy, who is one of Snyder’s deputies. “I told him, ‘As long as I can see them.’ ”
James Clark and his wife, Elaine, 42, now live in the remote trailer home where the elderly couple was murdered. Elaine Clark, who prefers a lighter-weight .35-caliber, sat in the kitchen one day last week with her husband’s heavy semiautomatic on the table in front of her. There was a loaded hunting rifle propped against the freezer by her left hand.
“We always used to brag that it was like the Old West, in the way that your house was never locked,” she said. “Someone passing by, if you were gone, they could come in and get something to eat. But now it’s more like the Old West the way you’re always on guard. You don’t walk up to my house unless I know you’re coming . . . or you could darn well get shot.”
Catron County, with just 3,000 residents, covers almost 7,000 square miles. It’s bigger than Connecticut. Snyder, who was a deputy when the seven homicides occurred, was elected sheriff last year. He has an undersheriff and four deputies, including Jaramillo, who patrols the northern half of the county around Quemado. Half a dozen state troopers also work in the county. But with such a vast area to cover, it sometimes takes an hour or more to reach the scene of an emergency.
“Some of these people wouldn’t call us anyway,” Snyder said. “If someone breaks in their house, needs killing, they’ll take care of it. They’ll call us to pick up the pieces.”
James V. Blancq, the county magistrate in Quemado, said: “It took a certain kind of person to settle this country. Some of these ranchers, when their ancestors came here, this was the frontier. There were still Apaches and outlaws running around killing people. And so a gun was just as important a tool as a plow or a shovel. And to a large extent that’s carried down through the years.”
Blancq, a retired Navy officer, was first elected a magistrate in 1994. After he and a challenger finished tied in last year’s voting, they settled the matter with a hand of seven-card stud, dealt by a state judge. Blancq won a second term of office with two pair, queens and fours. He said no one has yet come before him charged with wrongfully opening fire in a panic. “Their attitude is, they have a 2nd Amendment right to own a gun,” Blancq said, “and no one is going to take it away from them.”
The three-member Catron County Commission agreed in 1994. Worried about federal gun control legislation, the members passed a resolution in January of that year opposing “any law that would in any way deprive the citizens” here of the right to bear arms. They noted that “the culture of the citizens of Catron County is replete with examples of the traditional and historical connection of the people and firearms,” and cited the necessity of “gun ownership for self-defense.”
Almost two years later, in November 1995, Gary Wilson, 51, and his wife, Judy, 46, vanished from their trailer home about 35 miles southwest of town. A coyote unearthed their skeletons near some Indian ruins the following August. They had been shot.
A month after the bones turned up, in September 1996, Gilbert Stark, 71, was found in a puddle of water at the bottom of his well about 35 miles southeast of town. Whoever pushed him closed the well’s cover afterward, the sheriff said. Stark died of hypothermia.
William and Pearl Clark were slain in March 1997, shot in their trailer home on a desolate plain 20 miles southeast of town, along with their daughter.
The couple’s granddaughter, Deanna Reid, 25, who lives in town, said it is doubtful a stranger murdered them.
William Clark was a cautious man, and his wife was just like him, she said. If they were home and heard a car approaching, Pearl Clark would look out a window. If she didn’t recognize the vehicle, she’d say, “Pappy, there’s a car pulling up.” Then she’d call out the color and ask her husband if he knew anyone who drove a car like that.
“And if he said no, he’d get up and make sure his gun was ready in his overalls.” She said her grandfather always carried a holstered .357-caliber revolver in one of his pockets when he was home. “And he’d walk out the door and meet the people before they could get out of their vehicle. Grandma would go to the back bedroom and bring out a shotgun, and she’d be ready at the window.”
They were all killed with that .357, the only gun missing from the trailer after the murders.
Reid was explaining this one afternoon last week in the kitchen of her trailer home. Then she walked into her bedroom and pulled open a bureau drawer.
On top of the socks and underwear were two handguns, each a .22-caliber. One is her husband’s, a revolver.
Deanna Reid’s weapon is a little nickel-plated semiautomatic with a pink handle. “That’s my baby,” she said. She sets it on the dashboard of her truck whenever she leaves home.
“I wanted a 9-millimeter, but that’s become a real popular gun around here, so I’d rather not have one,” she said. “I don’t want to have to have my gun checked along with everyone else’s the next time someone gets shot.”
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39615921749aa0fab54747df51467fe2 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-nov-26-cl-37624-story.html | Mail-Bonding With Our Readers | Mail-Bonding With Our Readers
Going Postal: When packages for reporters arrive at the Los Angeles Times, security guards usually X-ray them (the packages, not the reporters), presumably to check for bombs but also to intercept cool product samples for top editors.
The only reason we know this is because every parcel received by our colleagues carries a stamped message, “Material has been X-rayed.” Off-Kilter’s mail, on the other hand, is never screened. We’re not sure if management is trying to tell us something, but it’s always an adventure when we make the interns open our mail.
Usually everything turns out fine. Here’s a recent sampling, dedicated to the memory of interns Phil, Sally, Jesse and Raphael. Sorry, guys.
* Regarding our phobia of Barry Manilow (the man who writes the songs that make the whole world scream), Donna Gosselin of Michigan asked: “Why don’t you open up your small little mind and check out some of his music?” Uh, isn’t that the same line that Satan used on Lot’s wife right before she turned into a pillar of salt?
* In response to our report on a bizarre campaign to eliminate the word “the” from English language--as exemplified by Staples Center, the arena whose owners believe that using the word in their building’s name could jinx the Clippers--we got several letters. Jonathan Dowling theorized that the anti-"the” effort is a Communist plot. As proof, he cited the Ukraine’s decision to change its official name to just “Ukraine.” And Jeff Bara pointed out that many rock groups (which are probably infiltrated by Commies)--such as Eurythmics, Talking Heads and Edie Brickell and New Bohemians--also insist on no “the” in their names. The only bright spot is a band called The The. But they they broke broke up.
* We’re also still getting mail about an August column on sabotaging the new Oxford English Dictionary. As you may recall, the dictionary’s editors are worried about overlooking some of the slang and technical words that have arisen since their last edition. So they created an Internet site (https://www.oed.com/readers/research.htm) where people can submit words. The catch is you must prove the word has appeared in print.
Our goal is to sneak a made-up word into the dictionary, such as “braille-gating” (which means to drive so closely behind someone that you can touch their bumper), “bogusvillea” (a plastic bougainvillea) or maybe even “the.”
So we asked readers to invent words that we could use in a column, thus qualifying them for submission. Numerous ideas came in, including some from Whittier College English professor Joe Price, who turned our prank into a class assignment. Among the nominees: Amy Faucher’s “precrastination” (getting work done ahead of time), and R. Rozenek’s “gridlost” (a traffic jam that clears up for no apparent reason). Another reader forwarded some fake words from a Washington Post contest. Our favorites were “reintarnation” (coming back to life as a hillbilly) and “giraffiti” (vandalism spray-painted very high).
Holy Coke: A Brazilian priest who was caught with 11 kilos of cocaine hidden under his cassock told police he was trafficking in the drug to save a struggling day-care center, according to Reuters.
In a related story, George W. Bush now admits he “may have experimented once or twice with trying to save a struggling day-care center.”
Best Supermarket Tabloid Headline: “Holiday Shopping Can Kill You!” (Weekly World News)
Unpaid Informants: Rachel Williams. E-mail Off-Kilter at roy.rivenburg@latimes.com. The column runs Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
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2812a19f97b68bd59e3390a73867a5c8 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-nov-28-mn-38327-story.html | A Bitter Harvest: Iowa Farmer Calls It Quits | A Bitter Harvest: Iowa Farmer Calls It Quits
As the copper glow of the fall sunset fades, Roger Warne’s tractor chugs along the dusty gravel road, hauling in a load of beans. It is a routine chore, but this year it carries more weight--the heavy weight of family history.
This is his last harvest.
This too is the end of a Warne family tradition that lasted 131 years, from horse-and-plow to computer-in-the-combine, through five generations of fathers handing down to their sons a love of the land as if it were a treasured heirloom.
With his 40th birthday weeks away, Warne decided it was time to make a break, to revive his teaching career, to have a steady paycheck, not one measured by nature’s whims, the strength of Asia’s economy or government bailouts.
“I just couldn’t handle another year of going backward,” Warne says, resting on his paint-chipped swing, his Chesapeake Bay retriever, Sadie, nuzzling his ankles. “I needed to start digging myself out.”
Facing debts of more than $100,000, Warne told his father last spring that after 15 years of farming, he was about to call it quits.
“I’m sorry I failed,” he said, his voice quavering as he repaired a disc in his father’s shed, preparing for his final planting season.
“No, you didn’t,” Ross Warne reassured him with the calm of a 73-year-old who has weathered his own hard times during 60 years of farming the same softly rolling hills.
“I don’t see how anyone can make it work these days,” the elder Warne later says, shaking his head in dismay.
Warne’s predicament is far from unusual.
Even with a booming national economy, a record $8.7-billion federal bailout and bumper harvests expected across much of the heartland, thousands of farmers in the Midwest and Plains are in trouble, and many may not be back in the fields next spring.
Many experts say the problem is basic economics: too much supply, too little demand.
Increased global competition, along with Asian and Russian economic troubles that dampened demand for U.S. grain, have pushed down prices dramatically. In some places, years of bad weather and disease added to the misery.
Some also blame a 1996 law commonly known as Freedom to Farm, which gave farmers more flexibility in planting crops, stopped paying for long-term grain storage and eliminated the idle land requirement, which was done in exchange for subsidies.
Corn prices are at their lowest since the farm crisis of the mid-1980s; for soybeans, it’s the early 1970s--and that’s without adjusting for inflation, says Robert Wisner, an economics professor at Iowa State University.
In 1995-96, a peak time for prices, Warne could get $3.24 for a bushel of corn; he recently sold his for $1.46, about $1 below the break-even cost. Government assistance closes some of the gap, but not enough.
As many as 40% of Iowa farmers are considered vulnerable and must make major changes to survive, according to a study by Robert Jolly, an agricultural economist at Iowa State.
“We’ve had people on the edge all along,” he says. “You put a couple of bad years together, and the financial stress becomes more evident. If you have a divorce, a death in the family and your car is smashed up, you reach a point where you’ve just about had it. That’s what’s happening now to farmers.”
And that’s what happened to Roger Warne.
Warne was a natural at farming, driving his dad’s tractor at age 10, hauling corn by 12. He attended Iowa State University, where the sturdy 6-foot-2 student played football and earned a teaching degree. But after two years in the classroom, he realized his dreams were in the fields.
He returned to this western Iowa community, settled in the blue-frame home where his father slept as a boy and plowed the same rich black earth his ancestors had through two world wars, a Depression and countless recessions.
Warne had always mastered whatever he tried. He was an all-around athlete in high school: He made the Atlantic Trojans’ baseball, football, basketball and track teams. He showed a champion steer at the county fair. He sculpts his own oak furniture.
For a time, farming too meant success.
He farmed 420 acres and, after several years, he expanded and poured nearly $200,000 into setting up a pig co-op with two partners.
When it collapsed after hog prices plummeted, Warne pushed on.
He had always considered farming as something of a gamble, so he held out for the jackpot, the one great year that would wipe out all the bad ones. It never came.
Last year Warne spent $100,000 planting his crop, only to earn as much money as he would have flipping burgers in a fast-food joint.
His nerves frayed, his mind wandered.
“There have been days,” he confides, “when you have all sorts of crazy thoughts, when you think that you’re worth more dead than you are alive. . . . You have life insurance policies to ensure that what’s left behind is going to be able to take care of everything. . . . But hopefully I’m a reasonable individual.”
Warne now worries it may take 20 years to erase his debt, so he still keeps farmer’s hours: He teaches at Atlantic High School, coaches and referees basketball and leads an adult education class one night a week. He also keeps his hand in the hog business.
His wife, Nita--both are in their second marriages and together they have five children--makes sandwiches at a local Subway shop. She welcomed his career change, having noticed how agitated her easygoing husband had become.
“I said, ‘It’s time,’ ” she recalls. “Let’s get on our feet. Let’s try to start something for our future.”
Warne will miss much about farming: being his own boss, endless green horizons, the joy of nurturing golden stalks of corn until they sprout as high as those 10-foot-high basketball rims he still reaches for during pickup games.
On a recent warm fall day, Warne, assisted by his father, hustled to get the last corn from the field. Only about 100 yards remained when the skies crackled with lightning and thunder boomed.
Nature, not always so obliging, delayed the storm this time. Warne finished his last harvest and drove home.
Then the rains came.
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b273d46718d04efec1d03c199d23da25 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-nov-30-cl-38801-story.html | Honors Roll for Dutch-American Doctor at the Petersen Social Circuits | Honors Roll for Dutch-American Doctor at the Petersen Social Circuits
When the Dutch returned the salute of an American brig of war on Nov. 16, 1776, the Netherlands became the first foreign nation to recognize the sovereignty of the United States.
However, it wasn’t until 1991 that then-President George Bush established that date as Dutch-American Heritage Day, honoring the 8 million Americans of Dutch ancestry, nearly 100,000 of whom live in Southern California.
Since then, an annual black-tie dinner dance in Los Angeles to benefit the Netherlands-America Foundation Scholarship Fund has paid tribute to an outstanding Dutch-American. Past honorees include Walter Cronkite, state Supreme Court Justice Joyce Kennard, Joan Van Ark and Caltech’s Maarten Schmidt.
This year’s fete at Petersen Automotive Museum honored Dr. Willem J. Kolff, inventor of the artificial kidney, heart and lung. Life magazine has named him one of the 100 most important Americans of the 20th century.
Now retired and living in Pennsylvania, the 88-year-old Kolff says, “I still have much to do.”
Accompanied by Diana Carroll, 81, whom he called his “new young lady friend,” Kolff is also a man on a mission: the $3.5 million restoration of his old hospital in Kampen, Holland. It was there, in 1945, shortly before he immigrated to the U.S., that he constructed with his own funds and hands the world’s first successful artificial kidney from wooden slats, sausage casing, a Ford gear pump and a porcelain bathtub.
Armed with letters of American support organized by Glendale nephrologist Dr. John De Palma , Kolff was able to persuade the prideful burghers of Kampen to restore the landmark if the funds are raised by Jan. 1.
The Dutch treats for the party turned tricky when the five chefs from the Alliance Gastronomique Netherlandaise and their Royal Domains venison locked horns with the U.S. Department of Agriculture at LAX.
The feds wouldn’t release the meat, requiring a scramble to a local source who produced deer from Down Under. The menu for more than 100 included pea soup, bitterballen (meatballs), smoked eel, fresh herring and oh, yes . . . medallions of venison--served as strolling Dutch musicians played a tune roughly translated as “The Two Deer-like Eyes Looking at the Hunter.” (We skipped the entree.)
*
Performances by Stevie Wonder and the Hamilton High School Gospel Choir, baubles from Harry Winston, and a chance to win a Mercedes-Benz 320 Cabriolet were just some of the enticements at the Fulfillment Fund’s Stars of Tomorrow benefit gala at the Regent Beverly Wilshire on Nov. 18. Celebrating its 20th year of service to the youth of Los Angeles, this year’s black-tie soiree honoring Edgar Bronfman Jr., chief executive of the Seagram Co., raised $2.5 million. Elizabeth and Jim Wiatt chaired the evening, aided by dinner co-chairs Kelly Chapman and Ron Meyer, Monique and Doug Morris, and Kate Capshaw and Steven Spielberg.
Tinseltown’s A-list turned out in force for this bash: Barbara and Marvin Davis, Jeffrey Katzenberg, California First Lady Sharon Davis, and Courtney Love, who outbid Rupert Murdoch for the trip to Paris and two front-row seats at the Christian Dior spring show. Motown’s Berry Gordy snagged the Winston diamond and jawbreaker pearl earrings for a mere $42,500. And lucky Margaret Heymann took home the Benz.
*
Former vice-presidential hopeful Jack Kemp was back on the hustings in Los Angeles recently. But this time his campaign promise was in the form of a challenge: Kemp committed to help Habitat for Humanity build 100,000 homes if the Banking on the Future Program, sponsored by Operation Hope Inc., fulfills its goal of educating 100,000 inner-city youth in personal financial management in 20 cities by the end of 2000.
Kemp, who serves on the board of both organizations, made his pledge at Operation Hope’s third annual Banking on the Future Dinner at the Regal Biltmore Hotel. More than 600 attended, including John Bryant, chief executive of Operation Hope; Genethia Hayes, L.A. Unified School District board president; Meshach Taylor; Victoria Rowell; Daryl “Chill” Mitchell; Ron Brown; and Ed Moses.
Several local activists were honored: Bishop Charles E. Blake, pastor of West Angeles Church of God in Christ; “Sweet” Alice Harris, founder of Parents of Watts; Preston Martin, former vice chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank of Governors; Lyn Rinaldi, a teacher at Heliotrope Middle School; Murray Zoota, founder of the Banking on the Future Program; and Fidelity Federal Bank for its longtime corporate support.
Patt Diroll’s column will appear each week. She can be reached at pattdiroll@earthlink.net.
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1f935ff7cd9459acbe4965e953dfee0f | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-oct-01-fi-17374-story.html | Fannie Mae Moves to Loosen Home Loan Credit Rules | Fannie Mae Moves to Loosen Home Loan Credit Rules
The nation’s largest provider of mortgage funds, moving to increase homeownership among minorities and low-income citizens, unveiled a program Thursday to loosen lending standards for people with “slightly impaired” credit.
The Federal National Mortgage Assn. said it will encourage banks and other financial institutions to accept borrowers with blemished credit who may not otherwise qualify for conventional loans.
The program will begin on a pilot basis in 15 states, including California, and the District of Columbia. It is expected to expand nationwide early next year.
It is designed to provide homeownership opportunities for “many borrowers whose credit is just a notch below” qualifying for a loan, said Franklin Raines, Fannie Mae’s chairman and chief executive.
Currently, the consumers are forced to turn to so-called sub-prime lenders who charge higher rates, he said.
Under the new Fannie Mae program, borrowers will pay interest rates one-half to 2 percentage points higher than those consumers who have better credit histories, sufficient down payments or savings. The loans can be used to buy or refinance a home.
If the borrowers make payments on time for two years, the interest rates will be reduced by 1 percentage point. For example, a consumer who is granted a 30-year, fixed-rate $100,000 mortgage at 9.5% interest initially would pay $841 a month. After two years of timely payments, the interest rate would be reduced to 8.5%, cutting the monthly bill to $769.
In Southern California, Newport Beach-based Downey Savings and Loan and Santa Ana-based Mission Hills Mortgage Corp. are participating in the pilot program.
The market for these loans is significant, said Frank Demarais, Fannie Mae’s vice president of product development. He estimated up to half of the consumers in the $150-billion sub-prime market, who borrow from finance companies at higher interest rates because of less-than-stellar credit ratings, would meet lending requirements in the new program.
But lenders who will offer the mortgages were uncertain how much business would be generated through the loans.
“It’s a little early to tell what the potential is,” said Kevin Hughes, Downey’s director of secondary marketing. “I don’t believe this will be, from a volume perspective, our biggest producer. The standard 15- and 30-year conventional loans sold to Fannie Mae will be the larger percentage of loans.
“But this will be a niche program that otherwise would not be [salable] to Fannie Mae,” he said.
Although it doesn’t lend money to consumers, Fannie Mae helps set lending guidelines. Lenders who sell mortgages to the federal agency can realize immediate profits, lowering their risks and freeing up funds for more home loans.
Eric Belsky, director of the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University, said that lenders are just realizing the numbers of people who don’t qualify for standard mortgages.
Borrowers who have run into credit trouble from a “one-time event” are most likely to benefit from the new program, Belsky said.
More flexible loan standards, including lower down-payment requirements, have helped boost homeownership. Nationwide, more than two out of three citizens own homes, an all-time high.
Homeownership by minorities has increased faster in the 1990s than during any decade since the 1940s, with nearly 47% of African Americans and more than 46% of Latinos owning homes, Belsky said.
But the ownership gap between whites and minorities--during a prosperous time of high employment and low interest rates--has narrowed only slightly since 1993. “There [are] still enormous disparities that cannot be accounted for with differences in wealth and income,” Belsky said.
Consumers seeking more information on the program can call (800) 732-6643 between 6 a.m. and 2 p.m. PST.
The announcement came only weeks after the federal government unveiled one of the most ambitious programs ever to give more low- and moderate-income families an opportunity to buy homes.
Under that program, Fannie Mae and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp., also known as Freddie Mac, agreed to pour $488 billion more into buying up mortgages for home purchases and loans for apartment construction.
More than $34 billion of the additional funds is earmarked for Southern California, including $9 billion in Orange County.
Fannie Mae, which has been under increased pressure from Housing and Urban Development chief Andrew Cuomo to step up its lending to lower-income consumers, buys mortgages of up to $240,000 from traditional lenders.
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c06abcb9ec79c58358c9f36ea1c543af | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-oct-04-me-18604-story.html | Era Ends as 78-Year-Old Men’s Store Calls It Quits | Era Ends as 78-Year-Old Men’s Store Calls It Quits
The shelves were almost empty in the final days of Zellman’s Menswear in Boyle Heights. About a dozen men’s jackets hung from the racks and some baseball caps lined the wall. Shoes were going for 99 cents; pants were half off. Even the headless mannequins were for sale.
After 78 years in business, the landmark Cesar Chavez Avenue clothing shop cleared out its merchandise and closed its doors Saturday. Dean Zellman, the third-generation owner, said he wants to focus his energy on his six-month-old Sherman Oaks store that specializes in embroidery and silk screening.
For the last few decades, Zellman’s had been the last remaining testament to a time when Boyle Heights was the largest Jewish community west of Chicago. When Elmer Zellman opened his men’s haberdashery in 1921 on what was then called Brooklyn Avenue, delis, kosher butcher shops and pickled herring stands lined the street. Now those businesses have faded away, replaced with carnicerias, panaderias and taco stands.
Elmer’s grandson Dean started working in the store when he was 7 years old, fetching layaways on busy Friday nights when young men came to pick up their suits and swap tips about the big parties that night.
“There’s a certain amount of regret [in leaving],” said Zellman, who plans to stay on the board of the Boyle Heights Chamber of Commerce. “But I would rather people celebrated the almost 80 years we have of serving Boyle Heights, rather than focus on the fact that we are moving.”
This afternoon his family is hosting a farewell celebration at the store, and has issued an open invitation to community members and longtime customers to come and share their memories of the old establishment.
In one corner of the room, the Zellmans kept a carefully arranged shrine to the history of the store. There’s a 1928 picture of a dapper Elmer Zellman in the haberdashery, an elegant establishment with gleaming glass display cases and polished wood shelves. There’s a copy of the original lease, renting the space for $90 a month.
Dean’s father, Manny, whose family lived behind the first store, was on hand to greet the final shoppers. He used to work in the shop seven days a week, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. In the last few years, the 80-year-old came in about three days a week.
“I have a lot of good memories of this store, of the people who shopped here,” Manny Zellman said with a fond smile. “I know I’ll miss it. It’s been a big part of my life.”
During the last week, longtime customers came in to say goodbye, many saddened by the loss of the historic business. “We’ll miss you, Manny!” they said, poking their heads in the door. Some reminisced about the store as they picked through the dwindling stock.
“When I walked by and saw they were closing, I couldn’t believe it,” said Cecelia Aranda, 31, as her young daughter Valerie hid in the racks of clothes. “My grandfather shopped here. My uncle bought his wedding suit here, ages ago.”
Manny Zellman was there the whole time. He got started in the business at the age of 12, sweeping the floors. After four years in the Army, he and his brother took over the store from their father, Elmer. Ten years ago, he sold it to Dean.
In the old days, he said, people gathered on the corners of Brooklyn Avenue from morning until night, talking animatedly “about politics and life.”
“The atmosphere was so warm, so sociable,” he said.
During the last few years, he would stand outside and watch the still-bustling neighborhood, the women pushing baby carriages, the young children racing down the sidewalk. As always, he chatted with passersby and told corny jokes to teenagers walking by.
“I think I say hi to about 1,000 people a day,” he said.
His family owns the building, but he does not know yet who is going to take over the space that housed his family’s shop.
On Friday, he stood at the front door and pointed to the cursive sign reading “Zellman’s” inlaid in the sidewalk. “This is going to stay here always, as far as I’m concerned.”
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ebc49da7e988a95197c3a66ebac2ed9d | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-oct-05-mn-18937-story.html | Jury Slams State Farm on Generic Auto Parts | Jury Slams State Farm on Generic Auto Parts
In a major setback for the auto insurance industry, a jury in Illinois on Monday ordered the nation’s largest car insurer to pay $456 million for cheating millions of customers by ordering body shops to fix their cars with low-cost generic replacement parts.
The award against State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance could grow much larger if the judge in the case grants lawyers’ requests for an additional $4 billion to satisfy fraud claims. The judge is expected to rule later this week.
The verdict is the largest in State Farm’s 77-year history and the largest single award ever against any insurance company, according to the American Insurance Assn., a trade group. The trial is being closely watched by plaintiffs’ attorneys, government regulators and consumer activists who during the last decade have challenged the auto insurance industry’s preference for so-called aftermarket parts to repair damaged vehicles.
Many car owners say the use of generic parts does not restore their vehicles to pre-loss condition after an accident, which hurts the resale value. Others have claimed in lawsuits that aftermarket parts often look shabby, perform poorly and fail to meet manufacturers’ safety standards.
State Farm, vowing to appeal the award, maintains that generic replacement parts are not substandard and that they save consumers money.
“We consider this a major setback for our policyholders,” said Bill Sirola, a State Farm spokesman. “If this verdict is allowed to stand, auto makers will have monopoly power to price their parts at whatever price they want. The cost of repairs going up will lead to higher premiums.”
State Farm insures one of every five vehicles on U.S. roads. About 3 million of its 37 million policyholders are in California.
If the award against the company remains intact, analysts and insurance groups say, consumers can expect to see their insurance premiums rise in the next few years.
“If our society requires insurers to use [original factory parts], then society will be required to pay the difference in cost,” said Harry Fong, an analyst with Deutsche Bank in New York.
Monday’s verdict by jurors in Marion, Ill.--the first case to go to trial--could bolster more than a dozen pending class-action lawsuits against other major insurers, including Allstate, Geico, Nationwide, USAA and Farmers Group, among others.
Some of the same plaintiffs’ attorneys who extracted billions of dollars in settlements from the tobacco industry are spearheading the suits against auto insurers.
How the $456-million award in the State Farm case will be divided among members of the class action is still to be determined.
Sirola said that despite the verdict, State Farm has no immediate plans to change its policy. But plaintiffs’ attorneys say they will ask Williamson County Judge John Speroni to order the Bloomington, Ill.-based insurer to do so.
“This is a clear message that State Farm needs to honor its contract and treat its policyholders fairly,” said Elizabeth Cabraser, a San Francisco attorney for the plaintiffs.
After deliberating for three days, jurors decided that during the last 11 years, State Farm broke its contractual promise with 5 million policyholders to repair their vehicles with parts of “like kind and quality.”
Speroni will decide whether the company violated Illinois’ consumer fraud laws by allegedly concealing concerns about the quality of the parts. During the trial, plaintiffs’ lawyers revealed internal documents by State Farm executives questioning the quality of parts--even as the insurer was sending brochures to its customers touting aftermarket repair parts as equal to the factory originals.
State Farm and other insurers insist that the use of cheaper parts does not affect resale values and helps hold down premiums. In 1998 alone, the use of aftermarket parts saved policyholders more than $233 million in premiums, State Farm lawyers said during the trial.
Consumer advocates dispute the contention that generic auto body parts save consumers money. Earlier this year, Consumer Reports, in an article titled “Cheap Car Parts Can Cost You a Bundle,” warned that such parts are inferior in quality to the manufacturers’ originals.
Tests showed that fenders took longer to install, did not fit as well and were more rust-prone. Aftermarket bumpers resulted in significant damage during accidents in some vehicles and “wouldn’t give you the protection you would need if you were having a low-speed impact in a parking lot or gas station,” R. David Pittle, technical director of Consumers Union, which publishes Consumer Reports, said Monday.
Generic parts typically cost 20% to 40% less than parts from the auto makers. For example, Ford’s replacement bumper for its Taurus sedan is listed at $535, compared with $242 for a generic replacement.
But generic parts can also mean higher repair bills. In 5-mph crash tests, a Ford with the original bumper suffered $235 damage; with the generic bumper, $1,320.
Most states allow insurers to approve the use of generic parts on the condition that customers are so informed in their contracts, according to Robert Hurns, an attorney with the National Assn. of Independent Insurers, the nation’s largest insurer trade group.
The chief executive of Keystone Automotive Industries in Pomona, the nation’s leading supplier of aftermarket parts, said he was disappointed by the jury’s verdict. “This is legalizing a monopoly,” said Charles Hogarty. “We hope the . . . public will see the danger of this and demand competition.”
Plaintiffs’ attorneys say the impact on the insurance industry would not be dramatic.
Morris Ratner, another attorney for the plaintiffs, said consumers should be given the option of paying lower premiums for generic parts.
The verdict “requires all insurers to be honest with their customers,” Ratner said. Consumers who settle for cheaper parts should pay lower premiums, while those demanding originals should pay more, he said.
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f620da0eb92e9d1d915b8ef8a7bdfbb0 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-oct-06-me-19524-story.html | George Winston’s Hawaiian Getaway | George Winston’s Hawaiian Getaway
Almost from the beginning, George Winston has built albums around seasonal or geographic themes. It started in 1980 with his second album, “Autumn,” included “Winter Into Spring” and “December,” both from 1982, “Summer” from 1991 and 1994’s “Forest.”
His new album, “Plains,” is no exception, but it’s also autobiographical, evoking his childhood on the wide-open spaces of eastern and central Montana.
Most of the music is what you’d expect: a mix of western Americana, seemingly ready-made for the score to a Ken Burns documentary on prairie life. There’s traditional material and tunes from Montana composer Philip Aaberg, Garth Brooks songwriter Tony Arata, guitarist Chet Atkins and Winston himself.
The surprises--at least in terms of the titular theme--are a tune from Italian mandolinist Massimo Gatti and a handful of numbers from the Hawaiian slack-key guitar tradition, which Winston plays on piano. On a limited-edition release of the CD, Winston plays a pair of the Hawaiian tunes on guitar.
“I discovered slack-key around 1974 or ’75,” he said. “I knew there was a lot I was missing in music and I just kept looking everywhere, at all kinds of music, until I found it.”
Winston is adamant about distinguishing slack-key guitar music--the simple, or “slack,” tuning of the Spanish guitar brought to Hawaii a century ago by Spanish and Mexican cowboys--from Hawaiian steel guitar, the indigenous island music most mainlanders know.
"[Slack key] is a single finger-picked style of guitar,” he said. “It’s completely different than the steel guitar, as different as country music is from bluegrass. It’s more like folk and blues music, old-time country music, and it has something that I never got from any other tradition.”
The tropical climes of Hawaii may seem a long way from the windy plains of Montana, yet Winston is undoubtedly slack-key music’s most dedicated champion in the recording business. His Dancing Cat record label, a subsidiary of the Windham Hill label he records for, has released 25 recordings from 14 slack-key artists in recent years, and Winston says the music touches something in his roots.
“It was Windham Hill’s idea to put the guitar tunes on the end of the recording,” Winston said from his home in Santa Cruz. “And the more I listened to them over time, they seemed to fit with the record. And the Hawaiian tunes I did on piano, I just felt like playing them. It didn’t surprise me that they fit in.”
For Winston, who plays tonight at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, there’s no science to the way he chooses the songs he records.
“I really don’t know how it works. It just kind of is,” he said. “The feel of the music is the deciding thing. Involuntarily, certain tunes make me feel certain things. It’s like a doing a soundtrack, except you don’t have the film to give you the images.”
Winston was born in Michigan but grew up in the Montana towns of Miles City and Billings.
“I tour Montana every two years, do some 12 or 13 cities all over the state,” he said, “so the album reflects my past and my present relationship with Montana.
“The plains are not like the western, mountainous part of the state that’s represented in [his album] ‘Forest.’ ‘Forest’ is darker, more lush, I guess, more like the colors of November. ‘Plains’ is more spare, brighter.”
And, one could add, just as melancholy, some of which stems from “No Ke Ano Ahiahi (In the Evening Time)” a traditional slack-key number and the first piece of Hawaiian music that caught Winston’s ear 25 years ago.
The other tradition that permeates Winston’s music is that of stride piano and the New Orleans R&B; of pianist Professor Longhair. (In the past, Winston has followed his Southern California appearances with late-night stride-piano concerts featuring himself and others, something scheduling doesn’t allow this time around.)
He also cites such jazz and pop influences as Booker T. & the MGs, Nashville pianist Floyd Cramer and surf-rock band the Ventures. Pianist Vince Guaraldi is a particular favorite, evidenced by Winston’s 1996 tribute recording “Linus and Lucy: The Music of Vince Guaraldi.”
Those are some of the influences he expects to tap for a future album focusing on dance and R&B; tunes.
“My albums have definitely had rural themes,” he said. “That’s pretty much where I’m coming from. The R&B; material will take care of the urban side.”
*
George Winston plays at 8 p.m. today at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, 12700 Center Court Drive. $25-$40. (800) 300-4345.
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